private sector

American  

noun

1. the area of the nation's economy under private rather than governmental control.

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private sector British  

noun

1. the part of a country's economy that consists of privately owned enterprises Compare public sector

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private sector Cultural  

1. That part of an economy in which goods and services are produced by individuals and companies as opposed to the government, which controls the public sector.

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Etymology

Origin of private sector

First recorded in 1950–55

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

private sector

An extensive network of undersea cables and pipelines owned and operated primarily by the private sector are thought to carry almost all the UK's international data traffic and three-quarters of its gas supplies.

From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2026

Whether there’s anything that governments or the private sector could do to slow the fall in human reproduction is unclear.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026

Overall, the IMF said that the private sector appears to have so far adjusted well to the geopolitical shocks from the war.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026

The federal government is far ahead of the private sector in securing its systems against rogue agents.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

The Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen 449 points, to its lowest level in four years, and most of the market-moving news was coming not from the private sector but from government officials.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

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