Word.ws English Dictionary

tragedies of the commons

tragedies of the commons is the plural of tragedy of the commons.

Meaning of tragedy of the commons

Noun

tragedy of the commons (plural tragedies of the commons)

  1. (social criticism) A situation in which unmanaged use of a shared resource (such as the atmosphere or an ocean) by a number of participants results in the unintended ruin or total consumption of that resource.
    • One theory, known as the tragedy of the commons, holds that people will exploit and abuse something in which they have no ownership stake.1995 May 7, Timothy Egan, “Let the Owner Beware”, in New York Times, retrieved 04 Jul 2012

Questions about tragedies of the commons

What is tragedies of the commons the plural of?
Tragedies of the commons is the plural of tragedy of the commons.

Words near tragedies of the commons in the dictionary

  1. tragedically
  2. tragedie
  3. tragedienne
  4. tragediennes
  5. tragedies
  6. tragedies of the commons
  7. tragedietta
  8. tragediettas
  9. tragedious
  10. tragedist
  11. tragedists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tragedies of the commons (page history and authors); tragedy of the commons (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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