1. An association of independent organizations formed to limit competition by controlling the production and distribution of products or services: Different companies joined together in a cartel to restrict the supply of their goods in order to keep the prices at a higher level.

While a cartel is usually a group of business representatives from independent companies, the term can also refer to a coalition of politicians who are united for what their voters want to be achieved.

2. Etymology: "a written challenge", from Middle French cartel; from Italian cartello, diminutive of carta, "card". It came to mean "written agreement between challengers" in about 1692. © ALL rights are reserved.

Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index