MEANING
1. The unfair use of people or their circumstances to gain an advantage for someone else.
2. The use of a resource, opportunity, or knowledge to gain a practical or commercial advantage.
Use it for
analyzing advantage gained through unfair treatment; distinguishing legitimate cooperation from exploitative use; evaluating whose interests a relationship servesDistinguishes abusive advantage-taking from neutral use of an opportunity or resource. Academic functions: Analysis / Interpretation.
Words that belong together
- labor exploitation
- the exploitation of vulnerability
- economic exploitation
On the page
The article distinguishes unequal bargaining power from demonstrated exploitation.
The interviews describe exploitation of workers’ limited access to alternative employment.
The report evaluates the commercial exploitation of the research without assuming that all such use is abusive.
The model concerns exploitation of an existing resource rather than discovery of a new one.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- exploitation
Usage notes
Normally uncountable. Exploitations can identify distinct forms but is uncommon in general usage. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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