Excuseflation
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The raising of the price of a good or service in the wake of an economic, political, or other social change that serves as a justification for the rise. neologism, uncountable
"The key question is, in an economy where the consumer continues to spend freely, how sticky this “excuseflation” proves to be and how high the Federal Reserve will have to drive up interest rates to prompt businesses to lower prices, or at least stop raising them."
Example
More examples"The key question is, in an economy where the consumer continues to spend freely, how sticky this “excuseflation” proves to be and how high the Federal Reserve will have to drive up interest rates to prompt businesses to lower prices, or at least stop raising them."
Etymology
Coined by journalists Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal in 2023 (see quotations below). Blend of excuse + inflation.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.