zaibatsu

Borrowed from Japanese 財閥(ざいばつ) (zaibatsu), coined from Middle Chinese 財 (d͡zoj, “wealth”) + 閥 (bjot, “powerful family”). Compare Korean 재벌(財閥) (jaebeol). Doublet of chaebol and jaebol.

• IPA^(key): /ˈzaɪˌbætsu/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

zaibatsu (plural zaibatsus or zaibatsu)

1. (economics) A Japanese ‘money clique’ or conglomerate; (by extension) in the United States, any large corporation.
   • 1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 37:

     He wondered briefly what it would be like, working all your life for one zaibatsu. Company housing, company hymn, company funeral.

   • 2018 March 31, Nina Li Coomes, “Unpacking the Fictional Japan of ‘Isle of Dogs’”, in The Atlantic‎:

     At other points, the film suggests the motive is financial, depicting the Kobayashi clan as staging an industrial coup of sorts, like a quirky Andersonian take on the zaibatsu (a term for the family-controlled business monopolies that dominated Japan until the end of World War II).

• chaebol (from the Korean equivalent)
• keiretsu

• zaibatsu on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

zaibatsu

1. Rōmaji transcription of ざいばつ