tycoon

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 大君(たいくん) (taikun, “great lord, prince”), a title for the shōgun. Related to taipan, from Cantonese 大班 (daai⁶ baan¹). The game sense was derived from the use of tycoon in titles of games in which one plays a tycoon (e.g., RollerCoaster Tycoon; cf. Street Fighter and later fighter (“game with a focus on physical combat”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /taɪˈkuːn/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -uːn

Noun

tycoon (plural tycoons)

1. A wealthy and powerful business person.

   Synonyms: captain of industry, magnate, mogul

   Chairman Yu is a tycoon who owns multiple hotel chains.

   • 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 24, in Crime out of Mind‎^[1]:

     Dagobert had only one customer, an American who wore square, rimless glasses and a beige suit and looked like a Wall Street tycoon.

2. (video games) A game within the massively multiplayer online game platform Roblox, involving the use of a base to generate bricks and cash (similar to an idle game or clicker game), which can then be used to purchase upgrades and expand.

   Synonym: tycoon game

   • 2013, Brandon LaRouche, Intermediate ROBLOX Lua Programming, Double Trouble Studio, →ISBN, page 172:

     Tycoons / A game in which users build up some sort of business by earning money over time and then using that money on upgrades.

   • 2017, Christina Majaski, The Ultimate Unofficial Guide to Robloxing: Everything You Need to Know to Build Awesome Games!, New York, N.Y.: Sky Pony Press, →ISBN, page 65:

     In most tycoons, you will find an automatic machine called a dropper, which is used for producing bricks.

   • 2019, Roblox Guide to Success and Dominating the World of Roblox, Ro Books, →ISBN, page 13:

     In my opinion, tycoons are great to create as your first game, but they take time to learn! The main tips are to keep the tycoon simple and stick with a theme.

   • 2022, Zander Brumbaugh, Coding Roblox Games Made Easy, 2nd edition, Packt, →ISBN, page 217:

     These experiences have fallen somewhat out of favor because once a tycoon is complete and all items are unlocked, there is not much of an incentive to continue playing. Updating these experiences can be a more difficult task, depending on how your tycoon is structured.

   • 2022, Jessica Stone, Digital Play Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide to Comfort and Competence, 2nd edition, Routledge, →ISBN:

     “What should we play? Adopt Me, a tycoon, SCP, an obby?”

   • 2022, Heath Haskins, The Advanced Roblox Coding Book: An Unofficial Guide, Updated Edition: Learn How to Script Games, Code Objects and Settings, and Create Your Own World!, Adams Media, →ISBN, page 153:

     The next most common game that we see inside Roblox are Tycoons.

Derived terms

• oil tycoon
• tycoon game
• tycoonocracy
• tycoonocrat

 

Related terms

• daimyō
• taipan

Translations

wealthy, powerful business person

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Basque: handiki
• Bulgarian: магнат m (magnat)
• Catalan: magnat (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 大亨 (zh) (dàhēng), 巨頭 / 巨头 (zh) (jùtóu), 財閥 / 财阀 (zh) (cáifá), (colloquial) 大款 (zh) (dàkuǎn)

• Czech: magnát (cs) m
• Danish: magnat c,matador c
• Dutch: magnaat (nl) m, tycoon (nl) m
• Esperanto: magnato
• Estonian: magnaat, suurtööstur
• Finnish: pohatta (fi), suurliikemies, suuraatelinen, magnaatti (fi)
• French: magnat (fr) m, tycoon (fr) m
• German: Magnat (de) m, Tycoon (de) m, Mogul (de) m, Manager (de)
• Greek: μεγαλοεπιχειρηματίας (el) m or f (megaloepicheirimatías), βασιλιάς (el) m (vasiliás), μεγιστάνας (el) m (megistánas)
• Hebrew: טַיְיקוּן (he) m (taykún), אֵיל הוֹן m (ēl hon)
• Hungarian: iparmágnás (hu)
• Ido: nabobo (io), magnato (io)
• Italian: magnate (it) m or f, capitano d'industria m, mogol m, tycoon (it) m
• Japanese: 巨頭 (ja) (きょとう, kyotō), 大立者 (おおだてもの, ōdatemono), 実力者 (じつりょくしゃ, jitsuryokusha)
• Kazakh: шонжар (şonjar)
• Korean: 거물(巨物) (ko) (geomul)
• Manx: ard-ghelleyder m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: magnat m, tycoon m

  Nynorsk: magnat m

• Polish: magnat (pl) m
• Portuguese: magnata (pt) m or f
• Romanian: magnat (ro) m
• Russian: магна́т (ru) m (magnát)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: та̀јкӯн m, ма̀гна̄т m

  Roman: tàjkūn (sh) m, màgnāt (sh) m

• Spanish: magnate (es) m or f
• Swedish: magnat (sv) c
• Ukrainian: магна́т m (mahnát)
• Vietnamese: trùm tư bản, vua tư bản, tài phiệt (vi) (財閥)

Further reading

• tycoon on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• coonty

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English, from Japanese 大君 (taikun, “great prince”), a title for the shōgun, from the Chinese root 大 (“big, great”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /taj.kun/

Noun

tycoon m (plural tycoons)

1. tycoon, magnate

   Synonym: magnat