capitalist

1 of 2

noun

cap·​i·​tal·​ist ˈka-pə-tə-list How to pronounce capitalist (audio)
ˈkap-tə-
1
: a person who has capital especially invested in business
industrial capitalists
broadly : a person of wealth : plutocrat
Charitable organizations often seek help from capitalists.
2
: a person who favors capitalism

capitalist

2 of 2

adjective

variants or capitalistic
1
: owning capital
the capitalist class
2
a
: practicing or advocating capitalism
capitalist nations
b
: marked by capitalism
capitalist period of history
capitalistically adverb

Examples of capitalist in a Sentence

Noun capitalists who lost everything in the '29 Crash
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Money poured in to drug companies by the billions — from venture capitalists, the stock market, the National Institutes of Health. Catherine Carlock — Boston Globe, STAT, 16 Mar. 2024 Today, start-ups and venture capitalists shop around for the best bank, instead of automatically going to SVB, Nivard said. Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2024 An Industrywide Shift: Silicon Valley venture capitalists once saw China as the next frontier for innovation and investment returns. Mike Isaac, New York Times, 7 Mar. 2024 Gheorghe’s journey to becoming a software engineer, venture capitalist and transformer of the fashion business began in Romania under a repressive totalitarian regime. Bruce Rogers, Forbes, 29 Feb. 2024 Its biggest donor is Atherton venture capitalist Gary Mark Lauder. Harriet Blair Rowan, The Mercury News, 27 Feb. 2024 Venture capitalists are some of the most powerful people on the planet. Taylor Lorenz, Washington Post, 12 Mar. 2024 In the tech world, some of the venture capitalists and founders who decamped to Miami and Austin, hailing them as the new hotspots for startups, are slinking back to San Francisco, enticed by the local boom in artificial intelligence companies. Kate Talerico, Orange County Register, 11 Mar. 2024 Those who work with the venture capitalist say that Tobel and cofounder Lucy Deland appeal to otherwise cautious investors because of their own experience as founders and their interest in founders who are tackling societal issues. Emma Hinchliffe, Fortune, 7 Mar. 2024
Adjective
The two best friends conspire to scam Bruce Marcus, one of Silicon Valley’s most famous venture capitalist billionaires, played by actor and comedian Marc Evan Jackson, out of millions of dollars. Taylor Lorenz, Washington Post, 12 Mar. 2024 The money-guzzling capitalist pig in a 1984 painting is a pig. Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2024 Thaksin has been at the heart of a two-decade power struggle between the Shinawatra family and its clique of capitalist upstarts, and a nexus of royalists, generals and old-money families that have long wielded influence over Thai governments and institutions. Reuters, NBC News, 19 Feb. 2024 That’s the other side of it: There’s the religious side and then the capitalist side. Julissa James, Los Angeles Times, 27 Feb. 2024 Because in the United States’ capitalist system, conversations about business and opportunity have to begin with capital as a starting point. Monica Sanders, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2024 The first billion came out of a century and a half of industrialization, technological innovation, and capitalist growth in the West between 1830 and 1975. Erika Page, The Christian Science Monitor, 22 Feb. 2024 The language of social equity had come to seem like a cloak for a more brutal capitalist reality. Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2024 Officials in Beijing have no experience in running a capitalist city. Timothy McLaughlin, The Atlantic, 9 Feb. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'capitalist.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

probably borrowed from French capitaliste "person possessing capital," from capital capital entry 2 + -iste -ist entry 1

Adjective

capital entry 2 + -ist entry 2, after capitalist entry 1

First Known Use

Noun

1774, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Adjective

1845, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of capitalist was in 1774

Dictionary Entries Near capitalist

Cite this Entry

“Capitalist.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalist. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

capitalist

noun
cap·​i·​tal·​ist
ˈkap-ət-ᵊl-əst,
ˈkap-tᵊl-
1
: a person who has capital and especially business capital
2
: a person who supports capitalism

More from Merriam-Webster on capitalist

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