privatizationn.
/ˌprʌɪvᵻtʌɪˈzeɪʃn/, U.S. /ˈˌpraɪvədəˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/, /ˈˌpraɪvəˌtaɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/ 1. The transfer of a business, industry, service,etc., from public to private ownership and control; spec. = denationalization n. 2.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > possession > owning > [noun] > private or individual ownership > privatization
privatization1942
1942 Econ. Jrnl. 52 398 The scheme amounts to a technical shift from borrowing to taxation and a ‘privatisation’ of part of the National Debt into bank advances to house-owners.
1944 S. M. Fine Public Speaking & Postwar Econ. Policy vii. 130 The great area of our economy disclosed to be subject to the sway of imperfect competition, privatization of markets, and a wide variety of trade restraints.
1959 News Chron. 28 July 2/6 Erhard selected the rich Preussag mining concern for his first experiment in privatisation.
1981 Daily Tel. 26 Oct. 16 This I shall myself begin to believe..when Dr Owen welcomes measures of industrial privatisation and demonopolisation.
1997 A. Barnett This Time ii. 52 At the same time that Tory MPs were involved in various illegalities..huge windfall gains were being made out of privatisation.
2. The process of coming to regard something as personal and private; the process of regarding an institution, social activity, etc., in terms of its relation to the individual or the nuclear family rather than to the wider community.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > kind or sort > individual character or quality > quality of being special or restricted in application > [noun] > quality of being particular or not general > quality of being personal > quality of being intimate or private > making private
privatization1944
1944 H.Speier & M.Otis in P.F.Lazarsfeld & F.N.Stanton Radio Research 212 People may come to think that their individual safety and gain and comfort are more important than the defense or power of their country. This is foolish, because it works only as long as not many people think and act in terms of what we call privatization.
1948 Public Opinion Q. 12 17 Non-political substitutes for subversive acitvites, such as privatization or panic.
1968 Listener 6 June 720/1 On these two points, the privatisation of death, and the loss of any sense of an appropriate length of life, I have contrasted contemporary English society with alien cultures—Celtic or African.
1979 E. Norman Christianity & World Order vi. 80 To regard Christianity as being..concerned primarily with the relationship of the soul to eternity, is these days denounced within Christian opinion as a ‘privatization’ of religion.
2004 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 29 Aug. iv. 7/2 The proliferation of cellphone use on city streets is also contributing to what urban planners have come to call the privatization of public space.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1942