Mcdonaldization
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The process by which institutions in society become standardized and focused on efficiency and predictability. uncountable
"Almost all social institutions (for example, education, sports, politics, and religion) were adapting McDonald's principles to their operations. And McDonaldization was spreading around the world—fast-food croissanteries in Paris (of all places), Kentucky Fried Chicken in Beijing, McDonald’s in Beijing and Moscow."
Example
More examples"Almost all social institutions (for example, education, sports, politics, and religion) were adapting McDonald's principles to their operations. And McDonaldization was spreading around the world—fast-food croissanteries in Paris (of all places), Kentucky Fried Chicken in Beijing, McDonald’s in Beijing and Moscow."
Etymology
From McDonald's + -ization. Popularized by the American sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society (1993), based on an essay of the same title he published in 1983.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.