duopoly

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English

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WOTD – 29 July 2023

Etymology

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PIE word
*dwóh₁
Coca-Cola and Pepsi are often called a duopoly (sense 1) in the cola soft drinks market.

From duo- (prefix meaning ‘two’) +‎ -poly (suffix meaning ‘pertaining to the number of sellers in a market’), by analogy with monopoly.[1]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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duopoly (countable and uncountable, plural duopolies)

  2. (economics) An economic condition in which two sellers exert most control over the market of a commodity.
    Modern examples of duopoly include the American markets for credit cards (Visa and MasterCard), smartphones (Apple and Google), soft drinks (Coca-Cola and Pepsi), and airplanes (Airbus and Boeing).
  3. (by extension)
    1. The domination of a field of endeavour by two entities or people.
      • 2012 June 29, Kevin Mitchell, “Roger Federer back from Wimbledon 2012 brink to beat Julien Benneteau”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2016-11-15:
        In 2011, his spirit and body were shattered by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semi-finals. Last night, the stakes were just as high – even though the tournament is not out of the first week – because there is a creeping perception that the [Roger] Federer–[Rafael] Nadal duopoly is slowly giving way under pressure from below.
      • 2018 February 10, “Spain’s centrist Ciudadanos are on the march”, in The Economist‎[2], London: Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2018-05-17:
        In Spain, Socialist and PP governments have alternated since the 1980s. This cosy duopoly was weakened by the long recession that followed the bursting of Spain’s housing bubble in 2007.
      • 2024 May 4, John Naughton, “The internet is in decline – it needs rewilding”, in The Guardian‎[3]:
        And these industrial farms have concentrated into a series of duopolies. Google and Apple’s browsers have nearly 85% of the world market share. Microsoft and Apple’s two desktop operating systems have almost 90%. Google runs about 90% of global search. More than half of all phones come from Apple and Samsung, while 99% of mobile operating systems are from Google or Apple. Apple and Google’s email clients manage nearly 90% of global email. GoDaddy and Cloudflare serve about 50% of global domain name system requests. And so on.
      First past the post voting has long maintained American politics as an effective duopoly where power simply alternates between two main parties.
    2. (broadcasting) A situation in which two or more radio or television stations in the same city or community share common ownership.
      Synonym: (Canada) twinstick

Alternative spellings

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Hyponyms

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Coordinate terms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “duopoly, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “duopoly, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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