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price war

price war

4 3.2
Companies lower prices to compete and attract customers, often causing lower profits
  • noun
  • /praɪs wɔr/
translation icon : guerra de precios
  • During the holiday season, stores often engage in a price war to attract more customers.
  • a bitter price war

And so yes, there's a price war and that is going to extend.

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Examples

  • The result: an all-out price war that has been going on for over a decade, reducing the price of a color TV in China by an astonishing 80 percent in the first five years alone.

    Academic text (2005)
  • Predatory price wars initiated by market behemoth Amazon directly devalue the written word, according to Turow.

    Blog text (23)
  • Also, notice Apple has a huge margin on the iPad that they could use in a price war.

    Blog text (21)
  • On the West Side of Chicago, there was a price war between Chinese and American laundries.

    Academic text (2002)
  • " There's a price war going on."

    Academic text (1998)
  • And so yes, there's a price war and that is going to extend.

  • The good news is that the Duopoly has gotten into a price war.

    Blog text (22)
  • Price wars were waged in the intense rivalry for the favor of potential customers.

    Academic text (1993)
  • Bitter price wars ensued.

    Academic text (1993)
  • The retailer failed to create modern supply chain management that could support an increase in customers, something it should have expected following its price war with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and aggressive advertising.

    Blog text (31)

Synonyms

price competition
vsprice war
2 3.0

Businesses try to get customers by lowering their prices

is intense aggressive cutting that often reduces profits for all firms

Antonyms

363 3.1

Being steady and not likely to change

How Intense

price war
4 3.2

Surface Forms

price war singular
price wars plural

Morphology

price + war

The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'price' (cost of goods) with 'war' used metaphorically for intense competition, so learners can infer it describes companies aggressively competing on price and driving prices down. This metaphorical composition is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish 'guerra de precios'), making the phrase immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituents.

Etymology

Price war comes from the image of companies acting like armies in a battle, but using price as their weapon. They 'attack' each other by lowering prices, so a price war means strong competition that makes prices fall.