price freeze
1
4.1
- noun
- /praɪs friːz/
- Specialized
:
congelación de precios
- The recent price freeze on rent has given many families peace of mind amid economic uncertainty.
- wage and price freeze
Examples
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The government implemented a price freeze to help citizens cope with rising living costs.
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Each successive plan spurred greater speculative behavior, as firms raised prices in an effort to beat the next price freeze.
Academic text (1998) -
What the Labour Party is promising is a price freeze even when prices are coming down.
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The Prime Minister knows she's no choice but to back an energy price freeze, but it won't be cheap.
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It is also a result of the long-standing electricity sales price freeze imposed by the Chinese government on the power sector.
Blog text (25) -
Because of the wage price freeze three years ago, the union didn't get a cost of living clause in its contract, and this time the URW is demanding an unlimited cost of living clause.
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The new government's reactivation strategy was highly successful during its first two years: based on boosting internal demand via price freezes and government subsidies, and funded primarily by reserves that would otherwise have gone to pay the interest on the national debt.
Academic text (1990) -
AP backbencher Alva Orlandini attempted to have a price freeze imposed, as well as a slowdown in the subsidies removal program.
Academic text (1994) -
In response to inflation, the city council announced a price freeze on essential goods for the next six months.
Synonyms
154
5.3
Officially stop an activity, for example the use of money or assets
Antonyms
How Strict
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'an official policy of keeping prices at their current level' is directly and compositionally derived from 'price' (cost) + 'freeze' (to stop or immobilize). This noun phrase follows a transparent compounding pattern and has clear equivalents in many languages (e.g. Spanish 'congelación de precios'), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
The phrase price freeze shows the image of putting prices in ice so they cannot move, like food kept in a freezer. That's why it means 'keeping prices the same' by a rule or order to stop them from rising.