enterprise
noun · verb
Simple meaning
An organization created for business ventures.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ehnterpryzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɛntɚpɹaɪz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An organization created for business ventures
“A growing enterprise must have a bold leader.”
A company, business, organization, or other purposeful endeavor.
An undertaking, venture, or project, especially a daring and courageous one.
uncountable
A willingness to undertake new or risky projects; energy and initiative.
uncountable
Active participation in projects.
A number of places in the United States
verb
transitive
To undertake; to begin and attempt to perform; to venture upon.
intransitive
To undertake an enterprise, or something hazardous or difficult.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An organization created for business ventures
Used this way, enterprise is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in business or professional contexts.
“A growing enterprise must have a bold leader.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Business/professional
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use enterprise
- “A growing enterprise must have a bold leader.”noun
- “He had doubts about the whole enterprise.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Marked by imagination, initiative, and readiness to undertake new projects.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An enterprise connected with commerce.
A commercial enterprise owned by the people who work for it.
An economy that relies chiefly on market forces to allocate goods and resources and to determine prices.
An illegal enterprise (such as extortion or fraud or drug peddling or prostitution) carried on for profit.
The development of industry on an extensive scale.
The activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.