monopolistn.adj.

1601 J. Wheeler Treat. Commerce 72 By this means..the Hanses should..possesse the whole trade of the realme, as Monopolists of the whole kingdom.

1648 T. Gage Eng.-Amer. xii. 61 The Marquesse of Serralvo..was the best Monopolist of salt that ever those parts knew.

1671 W. Perwich Despatches (1903) 148 The army has been sickly, & the monopolist that undertook the furnishing them with provision is much blamed.

1701 W. Paterson Proposals Council of Trade 72 The Fisheries were become a tempting Morsel for a Sett of avaricious Hucksters, and Monopolists.

1775 E. Burke Speech Resol. for Concil. Colonies 24 To raise the value of the possessions in the hands of the great private monopolists.

1844 T. B. Macaulay Let. 4 Sept. (1977) IV. 214 I shall not be surprised if the monopolists in England should try to make a national quarrel out of the question.

1866 ‘G. Eliot’ Felix Holt II. xxx. 230 We know what monopolists are: men who want to keep a trade all to themselves, under the pretence that they'll furnish the public with a better article.

1885 Law Times 78 222/1 An absolute right to refuse to supply a prime necessary of life is a dangerous weapon indeed with which to arm a monopolist.

1953 J. L. Hanson Textbk. Econ. iv. xiv. 235 Even though a monopolist has complete control over the supply of a commodity, he has not control over demand.

1986 Oxf. Econ. Papers 38 271 Landlords are increasingly being characterised as all-or-nothing monopsonists or monopolists.

1651 Mercurius Politicus No. 37 602 But why in England? are our Goose-quils in Holand, uncapable of such a pregnancy as that, and you the only Monopolists of it?

1742 E. Young Complaint: Night the Second 32 Joy is an Import; Joy is an Exchange; Joy flies Monopolists, It calls for Two.

1782 W. Cowper Conversation in Poems 243 When some green heads..Suppose themselves monopolists of sense.

1814 Ld. Byron Corsair iii. vi. 73 The life thou leav'st below—denied above By kind monopolists of heavenly love.

1817 J. Keats Wks. (1889) III. 5 He feels his being as deeply as Wordsworth, or any other of our intellectual monopolists.

1867 J. Bright Speeches Parl. Reform 69 The monopolists of political power would not willingly surrender that power..or any portion of it.

1975 D. Davin Closing Times vi. 124 Julian was a conversational monopolist and exacted total attention from his audience.

1982 A. Burgess End of World News 244 It represents at last the candid declaration of yourself as not only the creator of a doctrine but as its monopolist, its arbiter and judge, its supreme pontiff.

1841 R. Cobden Let. 4 Dec. (2007) I. 247 I see no symptoms in the monopolist organs of the press of any such intention being entertained by the Cabinet.

1879 G. Allen Colour-sense i. 1 The pleasure of colour is one which raises itself above the common level of monopolist gratification, and attains to the higher plane of æsthetic delight.

1887 Westm. Rev. June 327 The immunities..conceded to the members of that monopolist corporation.

1957 R. N. C. Hunt Guide to Communist Jargon 118 Generally speaking, Marx and Engels understood by the petty-bourgeoisie the small traders who, they contended, were being driven down into the proletariat by the monopolist capitalists.

1986 Dict. National Biogr. 1971–80 at McFadyean, Sir Andrew He believed tariffs, and monopolist practices and restrictive practices in industry, were destroying Britain's competitiveness.