Etymologically
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privatization

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 1 November 2026 at 00:47. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˌpɹaɪvɪtaɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/[1]
  • US: /ˌpɹaɪvətaɪˈzeɪʃən/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English private + -ization.[2][3][4] The OED instead derives it from the verb privatize with the suffix -ation, and compares the earlier nouns privatizing and reprivatization.[5] For the verb it compares German privatisieren (“to make private, to transfer to private ownership”), used so from the mid 20th century and in the 17th century in the sense "to live on one's private wealth".[5] Etymonline takes the verb as a back-formation from the noun.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Etymonline records the word in 1924, of the policy or process of making something private rather than public, in a United News article in the Miami Herald (28 April 1924) about German economic policy after the First World War: Hugo Stinnes had repeatedly demanded the privatization of the railroads.[2] The OED's first quotation, for the transfer of a business, industry or service from public to private ownership and control, is from the Economic Journal of 1942;[5] its first edition had given 1959.[6]

Semantic evolution

The word arose in reports on German policy in the crisis after the First World War,[2] and re-privatisation is recorded by 1939.[2] The verb privatize is recorded from 1923, in a Texas newspaper, in the economic sense,[5] though Etymonline dates it only to 1966, with re-privatise from 1942.[2] From 1944 the noun was also used in the social sciences for the process of treating something as personal and private, or of regarding an institution or activity in terms of the individual rather than the community;[5] Merriam-Webster defines this sociological sense as an individual's withdrawal from social and political life into personal concerns, often out of a feeling of insignificance.[3]

Timeline

  • 1924 – the making of something private rather than public, of German economic policy.[2] The OED's first record of the economic sense is from 1942.[5]
  • 1939 – re-privatisation.[2]
  • 1944 – the process of coming to regard something as personal and private.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The transfer of a business, industry or service from public to private ownership and control; denationalization: the privatization of the postal service.[5][3][7]
  2. (sociology) The withdrawal of individuals from social and political life into their private concerns; the process of treating something as personal rather than communal.[3][5]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West