"Chinese Wall" meaning in English

See Chinese Wall in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-Chinese Wall.ogg [Australia] Forms: Chinese Walls [plural]
Etymology: The expression Chinese Wall comes from the Great Wall of China and became a metaphor of barriers, known to go back to the United States stock market crash of 1929. The U.S. government saw the need to maintain separation (or an information barrier) between investment bankers and brokerage firms, to limit the conflict of interest between the two. The first use of Chinese Wall in the general context of keeping confidentiality is unclear. Head templates: {{en-noun|head=Chinese Wall}} Chinese Wall (plural Chinese Walls)
  1. (idiomatic, jargon) An information barrier within an organization, designed to ensure internal confidentiality; frequently used to prevent conflicts of interest. Tags: idiomatic, jargon Synonyms: ethical screen, ethical wall, Chinese wall, Chinese firewall Translations (barrier of silence and secrecy): Kiinan muuri (Finnish)
    Sense id: en-Chinese_Wall-en-noun-9PaVyQqX Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for Chinese Wall meaning in English (3.1kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "The expression Chinese Wall comes from the Great Wall of China and became a metaphor of barriers, known to go back to the United States stock market crash of 1929. The U.S. government saw the need to maintain separation (or an information barrier) between investment bankers and brokerage firms, to limit the conflict of interest between the two. The first use of Chinese Wall in the general context of keeping confidentiality is unclear.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Chinese Walls",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "Chinese Wall"
      },
      "expansion": "Chinese Wall (plural Chinese Walls)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. v.Superior Court 200, Cal.App.3d 272, 293-294, 245 Cal.Rptr. 873, 887-888",
          "text": "I concur in the opinion of Justice Haning, but write separately to comment on the apparently widespread use of the term \"Chinese Wall\" to describe the type of screening mechanism discussed in this case. While our opinion uses the term \"screen,\" both the parties and the trial court used the term \"Chinese Wall,\" which seems to have become a term of art. I write to express my profound objection to the use of this phrase in this context."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1980. The Chinese Wall Defense to Law Firm Disqualification 128 U.Pa.L.Rev. 677",
          "text": "The enthusiasm for handy phrases of verbal shorthand is understandable. Occasionally, however, lawyers and judges use a term which is singularly inappropriate. \"Chinese Wall\" is one such piece of legal flotsam which should be emphatically abandoned. The term has an ethnic focus which many would consider a subtle form of linguistic discrimination. Certainly, the continued use of the term would be insensitive to the ethnic identity of the many persons of Chinese descent."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An information barrier within an organization, designed to ensure internal confidentiality; frequently used to prevent conflicts of interest."
      ],
      "id": "en-Chinese_Wall-en-noun-9PaVyQqX",
      "links": [
        [
          "information",
          "information"
        ],
        [
          "barrier",
          "barrier"
        ],
        [
          "confidentiality",
          "confidentiality"
        ],
        [
          "conflicts of interest",
          "conflict of interest"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, jargon) An information barrier within an organization, designed to ensure internal confidentiality; frequently used to prevent conflicts of interest."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "ethical screen"
        },
        {
          "word": "ethical wall"
        },
        {
          "word": "Chinese wall"
        },
        {
          "word": "Chinese firewall"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "jargon"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "barrier of silence and secrecy",
          "word": "Kiinan muuri"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-Chinese Wall.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/89/En-au-Chinese_Wall.ogg/En-au-Chinese_Wall.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/En-au-Chinese_Wall.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "Chinese Wall"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "The expression Chinese Wall comes from the Great Wall of China and became a metaphor of barriers, known to go back to the United States stock market crash of 1929. The U.S. government saw the need to maintain separation (or an information barrier) between investment bankers and brokerage firms, to limit the conflict of interest between the two. The first use of Chinese Wall in the general context of keeping confidentiality is unclear.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Chinese Walls",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "Chinese Wall"
      },
      "expansion": "Chinese Wall (plural Chinese Walls)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. v.Superior Court 200, Cal.App.3d 272, 293-294, 245 Cal.Rptr. 873, 887-888",
          "text": "I concur in the opinion of Justice Haning, but write separately to comment on the apparently widespread use of the term \"Chinese Wall\" to describe the type of screening mechanism discussed in this case. While our opinion uses the term \"screen,\" both the parties and the trial court used the term \"Chinese Wall,\" which seems to have become a term of art. I write to express my profound objection to the use of this phrase in this context."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1980. The Chinese Wall Defense to Law Firm Disqualification 128 U.Pa.L.Rev. 677",
          "text": "The enthusiasm for handy phrases of verbal shorthand is understandable. Occasionally, however, lawyers and judges use a term which is singularly inappropriate. \"Chinese Wall\" is one such piece of legal flotsam which should be emphatically abandoned. The term has an ethnic focus which many would consider a subtle form of linguistic discrimination. Certainly, the continued use of the term would be insensitive to the ethnic identity of the many persons of Chinese descent."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An information barrier within an organization, designed to ensure internal confidentiality; frequently used to prevent conflicts of interest."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "information",
          "information"
        ],
        [
          "barrier",
          "barrier"
        ],
        [
          "confidentiality",
          "confidentiality"
        ],
        [
          "conflicts of interest",
          "conflict of interest"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, jargon) An information barrier within an organization, designed to ensure internal confidentiality; frequently used to prevent conflicts of interest."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "ethical screen"
        },
        {
          "word": "ethical wall"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "jargon"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-Chinese Wall.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/89/En-au-Chinese_Wall.ogg/En-au-Chinese_Wall.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/En-au-Chinese_Wall.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "Chinese wall"
    },
    {
      "word": "Chinese firewall"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "barrier of silence and secrecy",
      "word": "Kiinan muuri"
    }
  ],
  "word": "Chinese Wall"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.