multinational
Americannoun
-
multinationals
plural
adjective
-
of, relating to, or involving several nations.
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noting or pertaining to multinationals.
adjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of multinational
Explanation
When something is described as multinational, it involves more than two countries. A multinational corporation buys and sells in several countries, and it may also have offices in these countries. A multinational conflict is a war that involves the governments of three or more countries. Multinational peacekeepers might be from an organization like the United Nations (which could also be described as a multinational organization), working in many countries toward a peaceful agreement between them. The adjective multinational uses the prefix multi-, or "many," adding it to national, from the Latin nationem, "birth, kind, or tribe."
Vocabulary lists containing multinational
Political Geography - Middle School
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Political Geography - High School
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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:
She also lamented the lack of a choice of Manx produce on the shelves of multinational supermarkets.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
France and Italy have said they want to set up a multinational coalition to succeed UNIFIL.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
BelGaN bought the Belgian manufacturing site from ON Semiconductor, a U.S.-based multinational.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
To make the intervention work across many different settings, multinational working groups included representatives from every participating country.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 6, 2026
Each of these phases is specialized and unique, and neither India nor China nor Russia has a critical mass of talent that can handle the whole product cycle for a big American multinational.
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
GCCs are offshore innovation hubs of multinationals that perform business critical functions such as R&D, corporate strategy and artificial intelligence development among a plethora of other key jobs.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026
They are mainly designed to persuade multinationals away from making everything in China and Asia, and at the very least consider moving to North America, with hopes of greater investment in the U.S.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 22, 2026
Some American multinationals such as Exxon Mobil have subsidiaries in Europe that import energy from outside the bloc, meaning the rules would apply to them, too.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
The tax applies to tech multinationals like Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon, specifically targeting firms with global digital revenues exceeding £500 million and UK revenues over £25 million.
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026
These multinationals went global for markets and labor, spearheaded first by the expansion of the Dutch and English joint-stock companies and the Industrial Revolution.
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
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.
