See invisible hand in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for invisible hand meaning in English (4.9kB)
{
"etymology_text": "Coined by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. Influenced by and echoing earlier use as \"the hand of God\". See Etymology citations.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "invisible hands",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "~"
},
"expansion": "invisible hand (countable and uncountable, plural invisible hands)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Economics",
"orig": "en:Economics",
"parents": [
"Social sciences",
"Sciences",
"Society",
"All topics",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1982, Frank Hahn, Monetary and Inflation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, page 48",
"text": "When Lucasians postulate that prices are ‘flexible’ they seem to mean that we can observe only Walrasian market-clearing prices. There is no nonsense here about the invisible hand doing any noticeable and comprehensible work: its task is accomplished by definition.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008 May 25, Robert H. Frank, “The Invisible Hand Is Shaking”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-08-14",
"text": "In short, Smith understood that the invisible hand is often benign, but not always.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 July 29, George Monbiot, “The rich want us to believe their wealth is good for us all”, in The Guardian",
"text": "Aha, they say, but extreme wealth is good for all of us. All will be uplifted by their god’s invisible hand. […]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 November 6, Rob Nixon, “Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’”, in New York Times",
"text": "Yet the carbon giants continue to reap $600 billion in annual subsidies from public coffers, not to speak of a greater subsidy: the right, in Klein’s words, to treat the atmosphere as a “waste dump.” ¶ So much for the invisible hand. As the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson observed, when it comes to the environment, the invisible hand never picks up the check.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2022, China Miéville, chapter 6, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC",
"text": "However, the mainstream pro-capitalist position, especially as flat-out climate-change denialism becomes less common in the ruling class, is that the invisible hand and mighty forces of ‘entrepreneurialism’ will definitely lead to the ‘fixing’ of the problem.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A metaphor for the principle that in a free market, an individual pursuing his own self-interest also tends to promote the good of his community as a whole."
],
"id": "en-invisible_hand-en-noun-FE0a~Ni6",
"links": [
[
"economics",
"economics"
],
[
"metaphor",
"metaphor"
],
[
"free market",
"free market"
],
[
"individual",
"individual"
],
[
"self-interest",
"self-interest"
],
[
"community",
"community"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(economics) A metaphor for the principle that in a free market, an individual pursuing his own self-interest also tends to promote the good of his community as a whole."
],
"tags": [
"countable",
"uncountable"
],
"topics": [
"economics",
"science",
"sciences"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "mà invisible"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "onzichtbare hand"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"word": "näkymätön käsi"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "main invisible"
},
{
"code": "ka",
"lang": "Georgian",
"roman": "uxilavi xeli",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"word": "უხილავი ხელი"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "unsichtbare Hand"
},
{
"code": "el",
"lang": "Greek",
"roman": "aórato chéri",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "αόρατο χέρι"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"word": "láthatatlan kéz"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "mano invisibile"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "niewidzialna ręka rynku"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "mão invisível"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "nevídimaja ruká",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "неви́димая рука́"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "mano invisible"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"word": "görünmez el"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Adam Smith",
"The Wealth of Nations"
]
}
],
"word": "invisible hand"
}
{
"etymology_text": "Coined by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. Influenced by and echoing earlier use as \"the hand of God\". See Etymology citations.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "invisible hands",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "~"
},
"expansion": "invisible hand (countable and uncountable, plural invisible hands)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with quotations",
"English uncountable nouns",
"en:Economics"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1982, Frank Hahn, Monetary and Inflation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, page 48",
"text": "When Lucasians postulate that prices are ‘flexible’ they seem to mean that we can observe only Walrasian market-clearing prices. There is no nonsense here about the invisible hand doing any noticeable and comprehensible work: its task is accomplished by definition.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008 May 25, Robert H. Frank, “The Invisible Hand Is Shaking”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-08-14",
"text": "In short, Smith understood that the invisible hand is often benign, but not always.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 July 29, George Monbiot, “The rich want us to believe their wealth is good for us all”, in The Guardian",
"text": "Aha, they say, but extreme wealth is good for all of us. All will be uplifted by their god’s invisible hand. […]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 November 6, Rob Nixon, “Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’”, in New York Times",
"text": "Yet the carbon giants continue to reap $600 billion in annual subsidies from public coffers, not to speak of a greater subsidy: the right, in Klein’s words, to treat the atmosphere as a “waste dump.” ¶ So much for the invisible hand. As the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson observed, when it comes to the environment, the invisible hand never picks up the check.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2022, China Miéville, chapter 6, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC",
"text": "However, the mainstream pro-capitalist position, especially as flat-out climate-change denialism becomes less common in the ruling class, is that the invisible hand and mighty forces of ‘entrepreneurialism’ will definitely lead to the ‘fixing’ of the problem.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A metaphor for the principle that in a free market, an individual pursuing his own self-interest also tends to promote the good of his community as a whole."
],
"links": [
[
"economics",
"economics"
],
[
"metaphor",
"metaphor"
],
[
"free market",
"free market"
],
[
"individual",
"individual"
],
[
"self-interest",
"self-interest"
],
[
"community",
"community"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(economics) A metaphor for the principle that in a free market, an individual pursuing his own self-interest also tends to promote the good of his community as a whole."
],
"tags": [
"countable",
"uncountable"
],
"topics": [
"economics",
"science",
"sciences"
],
"wikipedia": [
"Adam Smith",
"The Wealth of Nations"
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "mà invisible"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "onzichtbare hand"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"word": "näkymätön käsi"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "main invisible"
},
{
"code": "ka",
"lang": "Georgian",
"roman": "uxilavi xeli",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"word": "უხილავი ხელი"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "unsichtbare Hand"
},
{
"code": "el",
"lang": "Greek",
"roman": "aórato chéri",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "αόρατο χέρι"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"word": "láthatatlan kéz"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "mano invisibile"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "niewidzialna ręka rynku"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "mão invisível"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "nevídimaja ruká",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "неви́димая рука́"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "mano invisible"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "invisible hand",
"word": "görünmez el"
}
],
"word": "invisible hand"
}
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.
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