"vested interest" meaning in English

See vested interest in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: vested interests [plural]
Etymology: Popularized in sociology by Thorstein Veblen, The Vested Interests and the Common Man (1919). Head templates: {{en-noun}} vested interest (plural vested interests)
  1. (law) An indefeasible right or title, distinguished from a contingent interest, which could be defeated (i.e. cease) if a certain event occurred. Categories (topical): Law
    Sense id: en-vested_interest-en-noun-l2dsIzBB Topics: law
  2. A fixed right granted to an employee, especially under a pension plan. Translations (a right that can be conveyed): erworbenes Recht (German), ersessenes Recht (German)
    Sense id: en-vested_interest-en-noun-GvaPN7h~ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 17 42 4 17 19 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 16 49 6 15 14 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 18 39 7 16 19 Disambiguation of 'a right that can be conveyed': 29 48 4 9 10
  3. A stake, often financial, in a particular outcome. Translations (a stake, often financial, in a particular outcome): interés personal [masculine] (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-vested_interest-en-noun-1129Mm0F Disambiguation of 'a stake, often financial, in a particular outcome': 2 1 82 14 2
  4. (in the plural) A group of people or organizations with such a stake, especially those that seek to control an existing system or activity from which they derive benefit. Tags: in-plural Categories (topical): Corruption Translations (a group of people or organizations with such a stake): ذینفع (zi-naf') (Persian)
    Sense id: en-vested_interest-en-noun-yzhlEs7y Disambiguation of 'a group of people or organizations with such a stake': 2 5 26 65 2
  5. An exceptionally strong interest in protecting or promoting something to one's own advantage. Synonyms: dog in the hunt Translations (an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage): oma lehmä ojassa (Finnish), gesteigertes Interesse (German), (anyagi/pénzügyi/gazdasági) érdek/érdekeltség (Hungarian), interesse personale [masculine] (Italian), نفع شخصی (naf'-e šaxsi) (Persian), intereses creados [masculine, plural] (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-vested_interest-en-noun-Vr3MYj3j Disambiguation of "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage": 7 7 4 3 79

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for vested interest meaning in English (8.6kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Popularized in sociology by Thorstein Veblen, The Vested Interests and the Common Man (1919).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "vested interests",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "vested interest (plural vested interests)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Law",
          "orig": "en:Law",
          "parents": [
            "Justice",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1940, Thomas Wolfe, chapter 46, in You Can't Go Home Again, →OCLC",
          "text": "I saw them enjoying a special privilege which had been theirs so long that it had become a vested interest: they seemed to think it was a law ordained of nature that they should be forever life's favorite sons.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An indefeasible right or title, distinguished from a contingent interest, which could be defeated (i.e. cease) if a certain event occurred."
      ],
      "id": "en-vested_interest-en-noun-l2dsIzBB",
      "links": [
        [
          "law",
          "law#English"
        ],
        [
          "indefeasible",
          "indefeasible"
        ],
        [
          "right",
          "right"
        ],
        [
          "title",
          "title"
        ],
        [
          "contingent",
          "contingent"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(law) An indefeasible right or title, distinguished from a contingent interest, which could be defeated (i.e. cease) if a certain event occurred."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "law"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "17 42 4 17 19",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "16 49 6 15 14",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "18 39 7 16 19",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A fixed right granted to an employee, especially under a pension plan."
      ],
      "id": "en-vested_interest-en-noun-GvaPN7h~",
      "links": [
        [
          "right",
          "right"
        ],
        [
          "grant",
          "grant"
        ],
        [
          "employee",
          "employee"
        ],
        [
          "pension",
          "pension"
        ],
        [
          "plan",
          "plan"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "29 48 4 9 10",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "a right that can be conveyed",
          "word": "erworbenes Recht"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "29 48 4 9 10",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "a right that can be conveyed",
          "word": "ersessenes Recht"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A stake, often financial, in a particular outcome."
      ],
      "id": "en-vested_interest-en-noun-1129Mm0F",
      "links": [
        [
          "stake",
          "stake"
        ],
        [
          "outcome",
          "outcome"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "2 1 82 14 2",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "a stake, often financial, in a particular outcome",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "interés personal"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Corruption",
          "orig": "en:Corruption",
          "parents": [
            "Crime",
            "Politics",
            "Criminal law",
            "Society",
            "Law",
            "All topics",
            "Justice",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1920 [1919], Thorstein Veblen, The Vested Interests and the Common Man, New York: B. W. Huebsch, page 78",
          "text": "Today, under compulsion of patriotic devotion, fear, shame and bitter need, and under the unprecedentedly shrewd surveillance of public officers bent on maximum production, the great essential industries controlled by the vested interests may, one with another, be considered to approach—perhaps even conceivably to exceed—a fifty-percent efficiency; […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1929, Alexander Berkman, chapter 8, in Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism, New York: Vanguard Press, →OCLC",
          "text": "But it was not a question of evidence, of guilt or innocence. Tom Mooney was bitterly hated by the vested interests of San Francisco. He had to be gotten out of the way.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019, Danny Burns, Cordula Reimann, “Movement Building”, in Extinction Rebellion, editor, This Is Not A Drill, London: Penguin",
          "text": "It should now be obvious to everyone that vested interests only change when they are forced to do so.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 October 5, Rowena Mason, quoting Liz Truss, “Liz Truss promises ‘growth, growth and growth’ in protest-hit speech”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "She listed “Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, the militant unions, the vested interests, the talking heads, the Brexit deniers, Extinction Rebellion and some of the people we had in the hall earlier” as those who she thought were working against the interests of growth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A group of people or organizations with such a stake, especially those that seek to control an existing system or activity from which they derive benefit."
      ],
      "id": "en-vested_interest-en-noun-yzhlEs7y",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(in the plural) A group of people or organizations with such a stake, especially those that seek to control an existing system or activity from which they derive benefit."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "in-plural"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "2 5 26 65 2",
          "code": "fa",
          "lang": "Persian",
          "roman": "zi-naf'",
          "sense": "a group of people or organizations with such a stake",
          "word": "ذینفع"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004, Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows, “Transitions to a Sustainable System”, in Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update",
          "text": "Pervasive changes unfold spontaneously from new system structures. No one need engage in sacrifice or coercion, except, perhaps, to prevent people with vested interests from ignoring, distorting, or restricting relevant information.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Tony Judt, “The Social Democratic Movement”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010",
          "text": "Even the creation of a self-interested class of welfare bureaucrats and white-collar beneficiaries was not without its virtues: like the farmers, the much-maligned ‘lower middle class’ now had a vested interest in the institutions and values of the democratic state.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 October 24, Patrick Wintour, quoting John Yates, “Honours investigator calls for change in law”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "Mr Yates conceded: \"These cases are very difficult to prove because they are bargains made in secret. Both parties have an absolute vested interest in those secrets [not] coming out.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel Council Codex entry",
          "text": "The Council is an executive committee composed of representatives from the Asari Republics, the Turian Hierarchy, and the Salarian Union. Though they have no official power over the independent governments of other species, the Council's decisions carry great weight throughout the galaxy. No single Council race is strong enough to defy the other two, and all have a vested interest in compromise and cooperation.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An exceptionally strong interest in protecting or promoting something to one's own advantage."
      ],
      "id": "en-vested_interest-en-noun-Vr3MYj3j",
      "links": [
        [
          "interest",
          "interest"
        ],
        [
          "protecting",
          "protecting"
        ],
        [
          "promoting",
          "promoting"
        ],
        [
          "advantage",
          "advantage"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "dog in the hunt"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "7 7 4 3 79",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
          "word": "oma lehmä ojassa"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "7 7 4 3 79",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
          "word": "gesteigertes Interesse"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "7 7 4 3 79",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
          "word": "(anyagi/pénzügyi/gazdasági) érdek/érdekeltség"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "7 7 4 3 79",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "interesse personale"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "7 7 4 3 79",
          "code": "fa",
          "lang": "Persian",
          "roman": "naf'-e šaxsi",
          "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
          "word": "نفع شخصی"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "7 7 4 3 79",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
          "tags": [
            "masculine",
            "plural"
          ],
          "word": "intereses creados"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Thorstein Veblen"
  ],
  "word": "vested interest"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Popularized in sociology by Thorstein Veblen, The Vested Interests and the Common Man (1919).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "vested interests",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "vested interest (plural vested interests)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Law"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1940, Thomas Wolfe, chapter 46, in You Can't Go Home Again, →OCLC",
          "text": "I saw them enjoying a special privilege which had been theirs so long that it had become a vested interest: they seemed to think it was a law ordained of nature that they should be forever life's favorite sons.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An indefeasible right or title, distinguished from a contingent interest, which could be defeated (i.e. cease) if a certain event occurred."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "law",
          "law#English"
        ],
        [
          "indefeasible",
          "indefeasible"
        ],
        [
          "right",
          "right"
        ],
        [
          "title",
          "title"
        ],
        [
          "contingent",
          "contingent"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(law) An indefeasible right or title, distinguished from a contingent interest, which could be defeated (i.e. cease) if a certain event occurred."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "law"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A fixed right granted to an employee, especially under a pension plan."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "right",
          "right"
        ],
        [
          "grant",
          "grant"
        ],
        [
          "employee",
          "employee"
        ],
        [
          "pension",
          "pension"
        ],
        [
          "plan",
          "plan"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A stake, often financial, in a particular outcome."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "stake",
          "stake"
        ],
        [
          "outcome",
          "outcome"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Corruption"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1920 [1919], Thorstein Veblen, The Vested Interests and the Common Man, New York: B. W. Huebsch, page 78",
          "text": "Today, under compulsion of patriotic devotion, fear, shame and bitter need, and under the unprecedentedly shrewd surveillance of public officers bent on maximum production, the great essential industries controlled by the vested interests may, one with another, be considered to approach—perhaps even conceivably to exceed—a fifty-percent efficiency; […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1929, Alexander Berkman, chapter 8, in Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism, New York: Vanguard Press, →OCLC",
          "text": "But it was not a question of evidence, of guilt or innocence. Tom Mooney was bitterly hated by the vested interests of San Francisco. He had to be gotten out of the way.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019, Danny Burns, Cordula Reimann, “Movement Building”, in Extinction Rebellion, editor, This Is Not A Drill, London: Penguin",
          "text": "It should now be obvious to everyone that vested interests only change when they are forced to do so.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 October 5, Rowena Mason, quoting Liz Truss, “Liz Truss promises ‘growth, growth and growth’ in protest-hit speech”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "She listed “Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, the militant unions, the vested interests, the talking heads, the Brexit deniers, Extinction Rebellion and some of the people we had in the hall earlier” as those who she thought were working against the interests of growth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A group of people or organizations with such a stake, especially those that seek to control an existing system or activity from which they derive benefit."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(in the plural) A group of people or organizations with such a stake, especially those that seek to control an existing system or activity from which they derive benefit."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "in-plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004, Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows, “Transitions to a Sustainable System”, in Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update",
          "text": "Pervasive changes unfold spontaneously from new system structures. No one need engage in sacrifice or coercion, except, perhaps, to prevent people with vested interests from ignoring, distorting, or restricting relevant information.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Tony Judt, “The Social Democratic Movement”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010",
          "text": "Even the creation of a self-interested class of welfare bureaucrats and white-collar beneficiaries was not without its virtues: like the farmers, the much-maligned ‘lower middle class’ now had a vested interest in the institutions and values of the democratic state.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 October 24, Patrick Wintour, quoting John Yates, “Honours investigator calls for change in law”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "Mr Yates conceded: \"These cases are very difficult to prove because they are bargains made in secret. Both parties have an absolute vested interest in those secrets [not] coming out.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel Council Codex entry",
          "text": "The Council is an executive committee composed of representatives from the Asari Republics, the Turian Hierarchy, and the Salarian Union. Though they have no official power over the independent governments of other species, the Council's decisions carry great weight throughout the galaxy. No single Council race is strong enough to defy the other two, and all have a vested interest in compromise and cooperation.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An exceptionally strong interest in protecting or promoting something to one's own advantage."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "interest",
          "interest"
        ],
        [
          "protecting",
          "protecting"
        ],
        [
          "promoting",
          "promoting"
        ],
        [
          "advantage",
          "advantage"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "dog in the hunt"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "a right that can be conveyed",
      "word": "erworbenes Recht"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "a right that can be conveyed",
      "word": "ersessenes Recht"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "a stake, often financial, in a particular outcome",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "interés personal"
    },
    {
      "code": "fa",
      "lang": "Persian",
      "roman": "zi-naf'",
      "sense": "a group of people or organizations with such a stake",
      "word": "ذینفع"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
      "word": "oma lehmä ojassa"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
      "word": "gesteigertes Interesse"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
      "word": "(anyagi/pénzügyi/gazdasági) érdek/érdekeltség"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "interesse personale"
    },
    {
      "code": "fa",
      "lang": "Persian",
      "roman": "naf'-e šaxsi",
      "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
      "word": "نفع شخصی"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "an exceptionally strong interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "plural"
      ],
      "word": "intereses creados"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Thorstein Veblen"
  ],
  "word": "vested interest"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 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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