cartel
/kɑɹˈtɛl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.58 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A group of businesses or nations that collude to limit competition within an industry or market.
noun
An official agreement concerning the exchange of prisoners.
Example Sentences
- "oil cartel"
- "drug cartel"
- "Over the past decade, the very nature of organized crime has changed, with many groups diversifying their income beyond drug trafficking, and large cartels splintering into smaller, oftentimes more nimble groups."
- "He is cowed at the very idea of a cartel."
- "Xerxes whipped the Sea, and writ a cartell of defiance to the hill Athos."
- "He then sent down a flag of truce in military style, proposing a cartel or exchange of prisoners – the corporal for the notary."
Etymology
In the business sense, borrowed from German Kartell, first used by Eugen Richter in 1871 in the Reichstag. In the political sense, which was the vehicle for this metaphor, the English sense, like the German sense, was borrowed from French cartel in the sixteenth century, from Italian cartello, diminutive of carta (“card, page”), from Latin charta.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kɑɹˈtɛl/
- British English: /kɑːˈtɛl/