Word.ws English Dictionary

lubrication payment

lubrication payment noun: a bribe or extorted money, usually relatively small in amount, provided to a low-level government official or business person, in order to expedite a business decision, shipment, or other transaction, especially in a country where such payments are not unusual.

Noun

lubrication payment (plural lubrication payments)

  1. (euphemistic, idiomatic) A bribe or extorted money, usually relatively small in amount, provided to a low-level government official or business person, in order to expedite a business decision, shipment, or other transaction, especially in a country where such payments are not unusual.
    • A lubrication payment is a small payment to low-level business people or government officials to "grease the wheels" of business.1995, Mark E. Mendenhall et al., Global Management, →ISBN, page 145
    • Lubrication payments are made with requests for a person to perform a task faster or more efficiently, whereas subornation is an act of asking officials to neglect their duties or do something illegal.2001, Y. H. Wong, Thomas K. Leung, Guanxi: Relationship marketing in a Chinese context, →ISBN, page 105

Synonyms of lubrication payment

Forms of lubrication payment

plurallubrication payments

Origin of lubrication payment

By a metaphor in which facilitating human socioeconomic interaction is portrayed as lubricating machinery (e.g., oiling the gears, greasing the wheels); in this regard, compare also social lubricant.

Questions about lubrication payment

What does lubrication payment mean?
Lubrication payment means a bribe or extorted money, usually relatively small in amount, provided to a low-level government official or business person, in order to expedite a business decision, shipment, or other transaction, especially in a country where such payments are not unusual.
What part of speech is lubrication payment?
Lubrication payment is a noun.
What is the plural of lubrication payment?
The plural of lubrication payment is lubrication payments.

Words near lubrication payment in the dictionary

  1. lubricates
  2. lubricating
  3. lubricating oil
  4. lubricating oils
  5. lubrication
  6. lubrication payment
  7. lubrication payments
  8. lubricational
  9. lubrications
  10. lubricative
  11. lubricator

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lubrication payment (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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