merger
Americannoun
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mergers
plural
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a statutory combination of two or more corporations by the transfer of the properties to one surviving corporation.
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any combination of two or more business enterprises into a single enterprise.
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an act or instance of merging.
Astronomers say that the merger of galaxies can take a billion years.
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Phonetics. the process or phenomenon whereby two distinct speech sounds come to be pronounced identically: for instance, the cot–caught vowel merger has taken place in some dialects of English.
noun
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Often called (Brit): amalgamation. commerce the combination of two or more companies, either by the creation of a new organization or by absorption by one of the others
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law the extinguishment of an estate, interest, contract, right, offence, etc, by its absorption into a greater one
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the act of merging or the state of being merged
Discover More
Especially common in the 1980s, hostile takeovers have become highly controversial. Some contend that they bring needed infusions of capital and efficiency to the targeted company. Others argue that, having borrowed heavily to finance the merger, the buyer is forced to sell valuable assets of the targeted company to pay off its debt.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of merger
Explanation
When two companies become one company, they've had a merger. A merger is like a marriage for things other than people. It might help you remember merger to think of something that happens on the highway: several lanes sometimes have to merge into one lane. Merging leads to more than one thing becoming one. Words that mean something similar to merger are unification and fusion. Separation and break-up are opposites of a merger.
Vocabulary lists containing merger
Economics
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The merger of two legendary giants would reshape the entertainment industry, bringing together HBO, CBS, CNN, Comedy Central, Food Network and the Warner Bros. and Paramount film and TV studios.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
The merger has been unpopular in Hollywood because the combination of two similar companies is expected to erase at least 4,500 jobs, according to a recent report from Los Angeles County’s Department of Economic Opportunity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
The FTC requested additional information from Caesars Entertainment and Fertitta Entertainment regarding their roughly $5.7 billion merger.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
A Wall Street analyst believes the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger faces several execution risks.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
Amalgamation occurs instead in either of two ways: by merger under the threat of external force, or by actual conquest.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
The company could reset its content-spending plans, which would take time; license live-sports broadcasts; or return to mergers and acquisitions after abandoning its bid for Warner Bros.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026
“We’ve seen from previous mergers that jobs have been lost,” L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
Despite fierce resistance from Berlin and the German lender, UniCredit has built up a stake of nearly 50 percent in Commerzbank and is close to sealing one of Europe's biggest banking mergers in recent years.
From Barron's ● Sep. 14, 2026
Smaller mergers such as the amalgamation of three colleges within the University of the Highlands and Islands network have happened previously.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
And the people who were already there pushed back, and the mergers pushed harder.
From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
