oligopolistic.

Relating to or characteristic of a market dominated by a small number of substantial sellers.

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Words that belong together

• oligopolistic market
• oligopolistic competition

On the page

The oligopolistic market contained several large suppliers rather than one sole seller.

Oligopolistic competition made each firm’s response to its rivals strategically important.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Relational adjective; compare degree only where the context genuinely concerns the strength of the relevant characteristic. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: economic explanation, resource analysis, incentive analysis, comparison. Disciplines: economics, business, social science. Commonness: uncommon.