Noun

(oligopolies)

An economic condition in which a small number of sellers exert control over the market of a commodity.

* {{quote-book

, year= 1866 , year_published= , author= Frederic Seebohm , by= (Thomas More) , title= The Fortnightly Review , url= http://books.google.com/books?id=p_9GAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA489 , original= , chapter= More drawn into Court. His Introduction to the "Utopia" (1516). , section= The Oxford Reformers of 1498. , isbn= , edition= , publisher= Chapman and Hall , location= London , editor= George Henry Lewes , volume= 6 , page= 489 , passage= For tho sheep are falling into few and powerful hands; and these, if they have not a monopoly, have at least an oligopoly , and can keep up the price. }}

* {{quote-book

, year= 1895 , year_published= , author= , by= (Thomas More) , title= , url= http://books.google.com/books?id=6REuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA55 , original= , chapter= The Fyrste Boke , section= Preliminary Matter from Robynson's Translation , isbn= , edition= , publisher= Clarendon Press , location= Oxford , editor= Joseph Hirst Lupton , volume= , page= 55 , passage= [footnote 2] We have ' monopoly,' but not ' oligopoly ' (the sale by a few), and so cannot preserve the point of the sentence. }}

* {{quote-book

, year= 1907 , year_published= , author= G. Macloskie , by= , title= The Princeton Theological Review , url= http://books.google.com/books?id=igPRAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA352 , original= , chapter= General Literature , section= Recent Literature , isbn= , edition= , publisher= Princeton University Press , location= Princeton , editor= , volume= 5 , page= 352 , passage= The specialist offices have it all to themselves; not a 'monopoly', but an 'oligopoly' , if we may coin the term. }}

* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=

, title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=But through the oligopoly , charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries.  By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.  This only magnified the indispensable nature of the oligopolists.}}