Keiretsu
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A set of Japanese companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings.
"Japan's keiretsu—or families of firms in large scratch-each-other's back networks—supported this or that faction in the LDP, producing a highly successful, structurally corrupt model of economic development that showed remarkable resilience through Japan's high growth economic period."
Example
More examples"Japan's keiretsu—or families of firms in large scratch-each-other's back networks—supported this or that faction in the LDP, producing a highly successful, structurally corrupt model of economic development that showed remarkable resilience through Japan's high growth economic period."
Etymology
Borrowed from Japanese 系列(けいれつ) (keiretsu, literally “system, series”), from Middle Chinese 繫 (ɣèj, “attached”) + 列 (ljet, “set, row”) (compare Mandarin 系列 (xìliè, “series, set”)).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.