oligopoly
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of oligopoly
First recorded in 1890–95; oligo- + (mono)poly
Explanation
In an oligopoly, a few powerful merchants or companies control the entire market. If you and three friends buy up all the toilet paper factories in the world, you will have a toilet paper oligopoly. Oligopoly comes from the ancient Greek oligo-, for "few," and pole, for "merchant," but the term wasn't invented until the late 19th century. In an economic oligopoly, only a few producers control the supply of something (like steel, cars, or clown suits), and each one has a lot of influence over prices. Oligopoly might remind you of monopoly, which is when a single producer controls the whole market.
Vocabulary lists containing oligopoly
Economics
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Microeconomics
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Chapter 6, Sections 1–4
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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.
“The global helium market is structurally an oligopoly, with production heavily concentrated in the United States, Qatar, Russia, and Algeria,” wrote London merchant bank Ocean Wall.
From Barron's ● May 28, 2026
The oligopoly of Meta, Google and Amazon is expected to strengthen its dominance in the global digital-advertising market this year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026
Evercore calls this process “the erosion of oligopoly rents.”
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 24, 2026
"The problem with this industry is that the supply chain is an oligopoly and sometimes even a duopoly."
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2026
Instead, we have an oligopoly of dominant banks that issue them: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, American Express, Citigroup and Capital One, which together account for about 70% of all transactions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 26, 2026
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.
