privatization
Pluralprivatizations
UK spellingprivatisation
- 1The transfer of a company or organization from government ownership and control into private hands.
The privatization of state-owned airlines was a defining economic policy of the 1980s.
Critics argued that privatization had transferred public wealth into private hands too cheaply.
Similardenationalization, sell-off
Oppositenationalization
Note
A word assembled from German: English -ation fitted to Privatisierung, built on Latin prīvātus, "apart from the state". It first described post-First World War German economic policy, and Sidney Merlin, writing in 1943 on German economic control, still sets it in scare quotes. Today it sits beside denationalization and works both ways: uncountable for the policy, countable for each sale (a wave of privatizations).
- 2The act of treating a thought or idea as private in scope, a matter for individuals rather than a shared or public concern.
The privatization of grief can leave a person isolated, processing loss entirely alone.
Questioning the privilege of biology went hand in hand with a challenge to the privatization of the family and the notion that parents own children and may therefore treat them however they choose.
1988, Laurie Sherman, “All In A Day's Work”Note
Here the economic word is turned on something more intimate: withdrawing a matter from shared concern into the private sphere. Writing in Gay Community News in 1988, Laurie Sherman paired a challenge to the privatization of the family with a challenge to the notion that parents own children. This is the uncommon use, so context must signal it; without that cue, readers hear the sale of state assets.
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Origin
This is a calque (loan-translation) of German Privatisierung, using the English ending -ation, from Latin prīvātus ("apart from the state; private"), linked to post-First World War German economic ideas. It was popularized by Sidney Merlin in 1943, who knew of the already-attested term reprivatization.