Word.ws English Dictionary

excuseflation

excuseflation noun: the raising of the price of a good or service in the wake of an economic, political, or other social change that serves as a justification for the rise.

Noun

excuseflation (uncountable)

  1. (neologism) The raising of the price of a good or service in the wake of an economic, political, or other social change that serves as a justification for the rise.
    • The key question is, in an economy where the consumer continues to spend freely, how sticky this “excuseflation” proves to be and how high the Federal Reserve will have to drive up interest rates to prompt businesses to lower prices, or at least stop raising them.2023 March 9, Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal, “‘Excuseflation’ keeps prices and corporate profits high”, in Bloomberg
    • The power of excuseflation is that it allows apologists to, well, make excuses. When egg prices shot up in January, Big Egg was able to blame it all on bird-flu.2023 March 11, Cory Doctrow, “Excuseflation”, in Medium

Examples of excuseflation in a sentence

  • These may be entirely legitimate reasons to raise prices but the companies engaging in excuseflation are seen as exploiting the situation.2023 March 24, Daily Mail City, Finance Reporter, “INVESTING EXPLAINED: What you need to know about Excuseflation – a ploy by companies to...
  • So yes, I think there is some excuseflation in that, in a context of shocks and emergencies, it changes the mindset of consumers.2024 March 12, Isabella Weber, quotee, “Isabella Weber: ‘It’s time to lower rates’”, in CE Noticias Financieras, English edition, Miami...

Origin of excuseflation

Coined by journalists Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal in 2023 (see quotations below). Blend of excuse + inflation.

Questions about excuseflation

What does excuseflation mean?
Excuseflation means the raising of the price of a good or service in the wake of an economic, political, or other social change that serves as a justification for the rise.
How do you use excuseflation in a sentence?
These may be entirely legitimate reasons to raise prices but the companies engaging in excuseflation are seen as exploiting the situation.
What part of speech is excuseflation?
Excuseflation is a noun.

Words near excuseflation in the dictionary

  1. excuse my French
  2. excuse you
  3. excuseable
  4. excused
  5. excused my French
  6. excuseflation
  7. excuseful
  8. excuseless
  9. excuselessness
  10. excusements
  11. excuser

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: excuseflation (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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Cite this entry: “excuseflation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/excuseflation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.