"Big Three" meaning in English

See Big Three in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Forms: the Big Three [canonical], big three [alternative]
Rhymes: -iː Head templates: {{en-proper noun|def=1|head=Big Three}} the Big Three
  1. (UK, World War II) The World War II military alliance consisting of the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Wikidata QID: Q5594228 Tags: UK Synonyms: Grand Alliance
    Sense id: en-Big_Three-en-name-en:Q5594228 Categories (other): British English, World War II, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 21 21 4 15 7 6 5 5 16 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 23 23 4 16 5 5 2 5 16 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 23 23 4 17 4 5 4 5 16
  2. (UK, World War II) The World War II military alliance consisting of the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
    The leaders of that alliance: Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill.
    Wikidata QID: Q5594228 Tags: UK Synonyms: Grand Alliance
    Sense id: en-Big_Three-en-name-en:Q55942281 Categories (other): British English, World War II, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 21 21 4 15 7 6 5 5 16 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 23 23 4 16 5 5 2 5 16 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 23 23 4 17 4 5 4 5 16
  3. Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.
    Sense id: en-Big_Three-en-name-Yse7-z3r
  4. Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.
    (US) The three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks in the United States: CBS (the Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (the National Broadcasting Company), and ABC (the American Broadcasting Company)
    Wikidata QID: Q4906538 Tags: US
    Sense id: en-Big_Three-en-name-en:Q4906538 Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Television, Three Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 21 21 4 15 7 6 5 5 16 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 23 23 4 16 5 5 2 5 16 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 23 23 4 17 4 5 4 5 16 Disambiguation of Television: 8 8 4 58 5 4 4 3 5 Disambiguation of Three: 14 14 9 23 9 10 7 2 11
  5. Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.
    (US, historical) During the mid- to late twentieth century, the three biggest automaker corporations in North America: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler.
    Wikidata QID: Q859399 Tags: US, historical
    Sense id: en-Big_Three-en-name-en:Q859399 Categories (other): American English
  6. Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.
    (US) A trio of three major management consultancies: McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company.
    Wikidata QID: Q4906534 Tags: US
    Sense id: en-Big_Three-en-name-en:Q4906534 Categories (other): American English
  7. (economics) China, Japan, and Korea, three major Asian economies.
    Sense id: en-Big_Three-en-name-bNe35h7F Categories (other): Economics Topics: economics, sciences
  8. (exercise) The deadlift, squat and benchpress.
    Sense id: en-Big_Three-en-name-paCeza-p Categories (other): Exercise Topics: exercise, hobbies, lifestyle, sports
  9. (tennis) Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal, each considered to be among the greatest tennis players of all time. Wikidata QID: Q85747134
    Sense id: en-Big_Three-en-name-en:Q85747134 Categories (other): Tennis, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 21 21 4 15 7 6 5 5 16 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 23 23 4 16 5 5 2 5 16 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 23 23 4 17 4 5 4 5 16 Topics: hobbies, lifestyle, sports, tennis
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: Big Business, big business, Holy Trinity, holy trinity Coordinate_terms: Big One, big one, big two, Big Four, big five, big six, big eight

Alternative forms

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          "text": "But over the last two generations, fund management has institutionalized and industrialized. It grew bigger to provide pensions to fast-growing postwar populations, and adopted passive management as the most effective way to do this. […] The logic behind these moves was clear, but it led to a problem. Huge blocs of shares were being held by a few huge indexing companies — led by the Big Three of BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street — who had no intention to sell them and therefore no means to discipline the managers. But while they were “passive” in the sense that they took no view on which companies to buy or sell, it was plainly in the best interests of their ultimate clients for them to be active stewards, stopping managers from misbehaving. The clients still wanted the companies they owned via the funds to be run for their benefit. Unless passive managers were active stewards of the companies in their funds, the whole concept of shareholder capitalism would be weakened. But corporate governance is expensive, and passive managers’ raison d’etre is containing costs. […] People who hold funds tracking the S&P 500, the most popular index, effectively have tiny holdings in 500 different companies; are they really going to go through all the proxy documents and vote on every issue? And do they really want this responsibility? It’s hard to imagine that they will. This was a problem that could be seen coming a long way away. In 2012, the economist John Kay produced a report on long-term investment for the UK’s then-Conservative government, arguing that big investors should be “encouraged to act collectively.” His report argued for the formal creation of an Investors’ Forum, a “vehicle for collective analysis and action in which the major players would be the principal asset managers.” That never happened formally. But it virtually came to pass organically through the power of the Big Three passive managers and the Big Two proxy advisers [Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis]. Without some such institution, Kay warned, modern investment management was incapable of acting as owners who would discipline company executives and boards.",
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        "The leaders of that alliance: Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill."
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      "senseid": [
        "en:Q5594228"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "Grand Alliance"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ],
      "wikidata": [
        "Q5594228"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              386,
              395
            ],
            [
              1909,
              1918
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 November 14, John Authers, “Has Passive Investing Grown Too Big to Proxy? The inconvenient truth of shareholder detachment surfaces in antitrust probe”, in Bloomberg Opinion:",
          "text": "But over the last two generations, fund management has institutionalized and industrialized. It grew bigger to provide pensions to fast-growing postwar populations, and adopted passive management as the most effective way to do this. […] The logic behind these moves was clear, but it led to a problem. Huge blocs of shares were being held by a few huge indexing companies — led by the Big Three of BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street — who had no intention to sell them and therefore no means to discipline the managers. But while they were “passive” in the sense that they took no view on which companies to buy or sell, it was plainly in the best interests of their ultimate clients for them to be active stewards, stopping managers from misbehaving. The clients still wanted the companies they owned via the funds to be run for their benefit. Unless passive managers were active stewards of the companies in their funds, the whole concept of shareholder capitalism would be weakened. But corporate governance is expensive, and passive managers’ raison d’etre is containing costs. […] People who hold funds tracking the S&P 500, the most popular index, effectively have tiny holdings in 500 different companies; are they really going to go through all the proxy documents and vote on every issue? And do they really want this responsibility? It’s hard to imagine that they will. This was a problem that could be seen coming a long way away. In 2012, the economist John Kay produced a report on long-term investment for the UK’s then-Conservative government, arguing that big investors should be “encouraged to act collectively.” His report argued for the formal creation of an Investors’ Forum, a “vehicle for collective analysis and action in which the major players would be the principal asset managers.” That never happened formally. But it virtually came to pass organically through the power of the Big Three passive managers and the Big Two proxy advisers [Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis]. Without some such institution, Kay warned, modern investment management was incapable of acting as owners who would discipline company executives and boards.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "corporations",
          "corporation#English"
        ],
        [
          "industry",
          "industry#English"
        ],
        [
          "oligopoly",
          "oligopoly#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.",
        "The three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks in the United States: CBS (the Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (the National Broadcasting Company), and ABC (the American Broadcasting Company)"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "corporations",
          "corporation#English"
        ],
        [
          "industry",
          "industry#English"
        ],
        [
          "oligopoly",
          "oligopoly#English"
        ],
        [
          "major",
          "major"
        ],
        [
          "traditional",
          "traditional"
        ],
        [
          "commercial",
          "commercial"
        ],
        [
          "broadcast",
          "broadcast"
        ],
        [
          "television network",
          "television network"
        ],
        [
          "United States",
          "United States"
        ],
        [
          "CBS",
          "CBS"
        ],
        [
          "NBC",
          "NBC"
        ],
        [
          "ABC",
          "ABC"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.",
        "(US) The three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks in the United States: CBS (the Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (the National Broadcasting Company), and ABC (the American Broadcasting Company)"
      ],
      "senseid": [
        "en:Q4906538"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "wikidata": [
        "Q4906538"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English terms with historical senses",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.",
        "During the mid- to late twentieth century, the three biggest automaker corporations in North America: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "corporations",
          "corporation#English"
        ],
        [
          "industry",
          "industry#English"
        ],
        [
          "oligopoly",
          "oligopoly#English"
        ],
        [
          "automaker",
          "automaker#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.",
        "(US, historical) During the mid- to late twentieth century, the three biggest automaker corporations in North America: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler."
      ],
      "senseid": [
        "en:Q859399"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "historical"
      ],
      "wikidata": [
        "Q859399"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.",
        "A trio of three major management consultancies: McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "corporations",
          "corporation#English"
        ],
        [
          "industry",
          "industry#English"
        ],
        [
          "oligopoly",
          "oligopoly#English"
        ],
        [
          "consultancies",
          "consultancy"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "Any group of three major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly.",
        "(US) A trio of three major management consultancies: McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company."
      ],
      "senseid": [
        "en:Q4906534"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "wikidata": [
        "Q4906534"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "en:Economics"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "China, Japan, and Korea, three major Asian economies."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "economics",
          "economics"
        ],
        [
          "China",
          "China"
        ],
        [
          "Japan",
          "Japan"
        ],
        [
          "Korea",
          "Korea"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(economics) China, Japan, and Korea, three major Asian economies."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "economics",
        "sciences"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Exercise"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              68,
              77
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2021 July 9, Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Junhui Huang, Jordan Haslam, “Insights into noise and vibration stemming from the gym’s heavy lifting”, in Sport Sciences for Health, volume 18, →DOI, pages 277–286:",
          "text": "The Squat, Deadlift, and Bench Press are widely accepted to be the ‘Big Three’ powerlifting exercises by strength and conditioning experts.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The deadlift, squat and benchpress."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "exercise",
          "exercise"
        ],
        [
          "deadlift",
          "deadlift"
        ],
        [
          "squat",
          "squat"
        ],
        [
          "benchpress",
          "benchpress"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(exercise) The deadlift, squat and benchpress."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "exercise",
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "en:Tennis"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal, each considered to be among the greatest tennis players of all time."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "tennis",
          "tennis"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(tennis) Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal, each considered to be among the greatest tennis players of all time."
      ],
      "senseid": [
        "en:Q85747134"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports",
        "tennis"
      ],
      "wikidata": [
        "Q85747134"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "rhymes": "-iː"
    }
  ],
  "word": "Big Three"
}

Download raw JSONL data for Big Three meaning in English (9.6kB)

{
  "called_from": "page/1498/20230118",
  "msg": "''Any group of three major or la'[...]' gloss has examples we want to keep, but there are subglosses.",
  "path": [
    "Big Three"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "proper noun",
  "title": "Big Three",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-19 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (d1270d2 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.