tycoon
/tʌɪˈkuːn
/noun
1A wealthy, powerful person in business or industry: a newspaper tycoon...
- He knew as well as I did that we are up against not just a business tycoon but a powerful politician.
- Corruption and bribery are rampant in many countries across Asia Pacific, often involving top politicians, government officials, military personnel, and business tycoons.
- The Democratic Party, which had planned to hold a march to condemn nepotism between the government and business tycoons, postponed its event to Jan.16.
Synonyms
magnate, mogul, big businessman, baron, merchant prince, captain of industry, industrialist, financier, top executive, chief, lord, magnifico, nabob, grandee;
entrepreneur;
millionaire, billionaire, multimillionaire
informal big shot, big gun, top dog, Big Daddy, Big Chief, bigwig, honcho, zillionaire
British informal supremo, squillionaire
North American informal big wheel, kahuna, top banana, big enchilada
derogatory fat cat
2A title applied by foreigners to the shogun of Japan in power between 1857 and 1868.
Origin
Mid 19th century: from Japanese taikun 'great lord'.
A tycoon is now a powerful businessman, but was originally a Japanese ruler, for it comes from Japanese taikun ‘great lord’. Foreigners applied the title tycoon to the shogun, or military commander of Japan, in power between 1857 and 1868, and in the same period Americans nicknamed President Abraham Lincoln ‘the Tycoon’. The word then extended to any important or dominant person, from the 1920s especially to a business magnate.
Rhymes
- storm drain
- stormer
- storm flap
- storm glass
- stormily
- storminess
- storming
- storm jib
- storm lantern
- Stormont agreement
- Stormont Castle
- storm petrel
- stormproof
- storm sail
- storm sewer
- storm signal
- storm surge
- storm system
- storm-tossed
- storm track
- storm troop
- storm trooper
- storm troops
- storm water
- storm window