big four
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.29 in modern English
Meaning
name
The four top Allied powers of World War I and their leaders: David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy and Woodrow Wilson of the United States, who met at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 at Versailles.
name
A jazz rhythm derived from the marching band beat.
name
Any group of four major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.
name
Any group of four major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.
name
Any group of four major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.
Example Sentences
- "Banks have been reporting their results in recent days, with HSBC the latest to reveal higher profits. It is one of the so-called big four, which also includes Barclays, Lloyds and NatWest. ¶ In response. Harriett Baldwin, who chairs the Treasury Committee, said: "The big four banks have been far too slow to reward savers through better rates on instant access savings accounts.""
- "The Big Four “hyperscalers”—Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft—expect to deploy a combined $725bn of capital expenditure this year on data centres."
- "That earned him a professional license he would need if he wanted to rise to the role of US senior partner at PwC, where he leads the Big Four firm's global advisory business and is co-head of its US consulting practice."
- "In several respects, the conditions which prevailed when this great venture was begun differed greatly from those in which the "Big Four" companies had embarked upon their previous regime in 1923."
Usage
- British usage