Word.ws English Dictionary

empire-building

empire-building noun: the practice of obtaining more power, responsibility or staff within an organization for the purpose of self-aggrandizement.

Noun

empire-building (uncountable)

  1. The practice of obtaining more power, responsibility or staff within an organization for the purpose of self-aggrandizement.
    • This increase has not been caused by empire-building on the part of transport managers, who have to convince such hard-headed men as accountants and boards of directors of their arguments.1960 March, “A transport manager's view of B.R. freight services”, in Trains Illustrated, page 179

Questions about empire-building

What does empire-building mean?
Empire-building means the practice of obtaining more power, responsibility or staff within an organization for the purpose of self-aggrandizement.
What part of speech is empire-building?
Empire-building is a noun.

Words near empire-building in the dictionary

  1. Empire Stater
  2. Empire style
  3. Empire Vale
  4. empire waist
  5. empire waists
  6. empire-building
  7. Empire-grown
  8. empire-waist
  9. empire-waisted
  10. empire-waists
  11. empirehood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: empire-building (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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