McDonaldization
McDonaldization noun: the process by which institutions in society become standardized and focused on efficiency and predictability.
Noun
McDonaldization (uncountable)
- The process by which institutions in society become standardized and focused on efficiency and predictability.
- Almost all social institutions (for example, education, sports, politics, and religion) were adapting McDonald's principles to their operations. And McDonaldization was spreading around the world—fast-food croissanteries in Paris (of all places), Kentucky Fried Chicken in Beijing, McDonald’s in...1996, George Ritzer, “Preface to the First Edition”, in The McDonaldization of Society […] , revised edition, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge Press, →ISBN, page xviii
Forms of McDonaldization
| alternative form | McDonald's-ization |
|---|---|
| alternative form | McDonalds-ization |
| alternative form | McDonaldsization |
| alternative form | McDonaldisation |
| alternative form | McDonaldsisation |
| alternative form | MacDonaldization |
| alternative form | Macdonaldization |
Origin of McDonaldization
From McDonald's + -ization. Popularized by the American sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society (1993), based on an essay of the same title he published in 1983.
Questions about McDonaldization
- What does McDonaldization mean?
- McDonaldization means the process by which institutions in society become standardized and focused on efficiency and predictability.
- What part of speech is McDonaldization?
- McDonaldization is a noun.
Words near McDonaldization in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: McDonaldization (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “McDonaldization.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mcdonaldization. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.