big business
See also: Big Business
English
Noun
big business (uncountable)
- (sometimes capitalized) Large, for-profit corporations collectively, understood as having significant economic, political, or social influence.
- 1940 March 18, "Life on the Newsfronts of the World: Big Government," Life, p. 26 (retrieved 13 Dec 2011):
- Because he is liberal, temperate and articulate, and because he freely recognizes past Big Business abuses, Wendell L. Willkie, president of huge Commonwealth & Southern Corp., is in a class by himself as a persuasive businessman-critic of the New Deal. . . . "Today it is not Big Business that we have to fear," concluded Businessman Wilkie. "It is Big Government."
- 1998 March 17, Clifford Krauss, "International Business: Argentine Labor Code Largely Intact," New York Times (retrieved 14 Dec 2011):
- In an uncharacteristic rebuff to big business, President Carlos Saul Menem plans this week to propose a package of labor regulations that leaves intact most Government-mandated severance benefits and limits companies' right to hire part-time workers.
- 2005 Jan. 17, Chaim Estulin, "Hong Kong's New Culture," Time:
- That smacks of cozy dealings between the government and the tycoons . . . . "Invariably, people see this as a conspiracy between the government and big business," says legislator Alan Leong.
- 1940 March 18, "Life on the Newsfronts of the World: Big Government," Life, p. 26 (retrieved 13 Dec 2011):
Usage notes
By extension, the pattern of big + [product/industry] is now sometimes used humorously, as for example in He tried to innovate in his pastry menu, boldly defying Big Cupcake.
Hyponyms
(in specific industries)
- big ag (Big Ag)
- big pharma (Big Pharma)
- big tech (Big Tech)
- big tobacco (Big Tobacco)
(in specific numbers of titans)
- Big Four
- Big Three
Translations
large corporations
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See also
- big government
- big labor
- big money