vested interest
noun
Simple meaning
A stake, often financial, in a particular outcome.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vehstuhdintruhstSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈvɛstəˈdɪntɹəst
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
A stake, often financial, in a particular outcome.
An exceptionally strong interest in protecting or promoting something to one's own advantage.
A fixed right granted to an employee, especially under a pension plan.
Groups that seek to control a social system or activity from which they derive private benefit
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A stake, often financial, in a particular outcome.
Used this way, vested interest is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a financial use: it has a settled meaning in accounting and business, where precision matters more than colour.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Finance/economics
- Business/professional
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.