cartel

In the business sense, borrowed from German Kartell, first used by Eugen Richter in 1871 in the Reichstag. In the political sense, which was the vehicle for this metaphor, the English sense, like the German sense, was borrowed from French cartel in the sixteenth century, from Italian cartello, diminutive of carta (“card, page”), from Latin charta.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kɑːˈtɛl/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /kɑɹˈtɛl/
• Rhymes: -ɛl

cartel (plural cartels)

2. (economics) A group of businesses or nations that collude to limit competition within an industry or market.

   oil cartel

   drug cartel

   • 2023 January 10, Whitney Eulich, America Armenta, “Mexico arrests son of ‘El Chapo’: Why don’t citizens feel safer?”, in The Christian Science Monitor:

     Over the past decade, the very nature of organized crime has changed, with many groups diversifying their income beyond drug trafficking, and large cartels splintering into smaller, oftentimes more nimble groups.

3. (historical, politics) A combination of political groups (notably parties) for common action.
4. (historical) A written letter of defiance or challenge.
   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:

     He is cowed at the very idea of a cartel.

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, The Essayes […], London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     Xerxes whipped the Sea, and writ a cartell of defiance to the hill Athos.

5. (historical, law) An official agreement concerning the exchange of prisoners.
   • 1832, Tales of the Alhambra, Washington Irving:

     He then sent down a flag of truce in military style, proposing a cartel or exchange of prisoners – the corporal for the notary.

6. (historical, nautical) A ship used to negotiate with an enemy in time of war, and to exchange prisoners.

• → Spanish: cártel

• cartel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Claret, arclet, claret, lacert, rectal

• Audio:

  (file)

cartel n (plural cartels, diminutive carteltje n)

1. obsolete form of kartel (“cartel”)

Borrowed from Italian cartello, diminutive of carta, from Latin carta. Related to English card.

• IPA^(key): /kaʁ.tɛl/

• Audio:

  (file)

cartel m (plural cartels)

1. a cartel

• → Dutch: kartel
• → German: Kartell
  • → Dutch: kartel, (obsolete) cartel
    • Indonesian: kartel
  • → English: cartel
    • → Spanish: cártel
  • → Italian: cartello
• → Portuguese: cartel
• → Swedish: kartell
• → Turkish: kartel

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Cartel”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.

• “cartel”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• clarté
• rectal
• tacler

Borrowed from French cartel.^[1][2]

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -ɛl, (Brazil) -ɛw
• Hyphenation: car‧tel

cartel m (plural cartéis)

1. (economics) cartel (a group of businesses or nations that collude to limit competition within an industry or market)

• картел (cartel) — post-1930s Cyrillic spelling

Borrowed from French cartel.

• IPA^(key): /karˈtel/
• Rhymes: -el
• Hyphenation: car‧tel

cartel n (plural carteluri)

1. cartel

• IPA^(key): /kaɾˈtel/ [kaɾˈt̪el]

• Audio (Venezuela):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -el
• Syllabification: car‧tel

Borrowed from Occitan cartel or Catalan cartell.

cartel m (plural carteles)

1. poster, placard, bill, banner

   Coordinate terms: letrero, placa, señal

2. lineup, billing
   • 2020 January 16, “El Festival Sónar anuncia a The Chemical Brothers, Arca, The Blaze, Richie Hawtin y Laurent Garnier”, in La Vanguardia‎^[1]:

     El 27 Festival Sónar de Barcelona, que volverá a celebrarse en sus fechas habituales este junio en los recintos de Montjuïc y Gran Via de Fira de Barcelona, ha anunciado este jueves su cartel con la presencia de artistas como The Chemical Brothers, Arca, The Blaze, Richie Hawtin y Laurent Garnier, entre un centenar de espectáculos.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

3. the "now-showing" board in a cinema or playhouse

Borrowed from English cartel, itself borrowed from German Kartell.

cartel m (plural carteles)

1. cartel (group of businesses that collude to limit competition)
2. criminal organization, mafia, mob

• cártel

• “cartel”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024