zaibatsu

plural zaibatsus

1. historicalbusinessA large business conglomerate founded under the Empire of Japan, generally controlled by a single family or individual.

   He wondered briefly what it would be like, working all your life for one zaibatsu. Company housing, company hymn, company funeral.

   1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 37

   1 more example

   At other points, the film suggests the motive is financial, depicting the Kobayashi clan as staging an industrial coup of sorts, like a quirky Andersonian take on the zaibatsu (a term for the family-controlled business monopolies that dominated Japan until the end of World War II).

   2018 March 31, Nina Li Coomes, “Unpacking the Fictional Japan of ‘Isle of Dogs’”, in The Atlantic

2. USbroadlyAny large corporation.

   Near-synonyms: megacorporation, supercorporation

   Synonyms: megacorporation, supercorporation