Privatization

//ˌpɹaɪvətaɪˈzeɪʃən// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The transfer of a company or organization from government to private ownership and control. British, English, Oxford, US, countable, uncountable

    "Coordinate term: denationalization"

  2. 2
    changing something from state to private ownership or control wordnet
  3. 3
    The rendering of a thought or an idea, as private in scope. British, English, Oxford, US, countable, uncommon, uncountable

    "Questioning the privilege of biology went hand in hand with a challenge to the privatization of the family and the notion that parents own children and may therefore treat them however they choose."

Synonyms

All synonyms
apartheiddenationalisationdenationalizationdenationalizationdetachmentisolation

Example

More examples

"It was disappointing to hear about the privatization of Chilean copper."

Etymology

Calque of German Privatisierung (with English -ation), derived from Latin prīvātus (“apart from the state; private”), with reference to post-First World War German economic principles. Popularized by Sidney Merlin in 1943, who was aware of the term reprivatization (used in similar contexts), already attested at the time.

Related phrases

self-privatization

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.