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An oligopoly is a market where only a very small number of companies control almost all the business, so a new firm finds it hard to come in and compete. It is not the same as a monopoly: a monopoly is one seller with nearly all the power; an oligopoly is a handful. Phone networks, big oil, and sometimes airlines get described this way. The few giants often watch each other — if one cuts a price, the others may follow — so the “fight” can look more like a careful dance than a free market. You meet the word in news and economics more than in everyday chat; it is fairly formal, though journalists like it because it sounds sharp.
寡占（中國大陸較常說「寡頭壟斷」）
組成oligo- (“few; several”) + -poly (“to do with how many sellers are in a market”), built by analogy with monopoly. The oligo- piece goes back to a very old root scholars write as *h₃ligos.
原始詞典資料1 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
oligopolynoun/ɒlɪˈɡɒpəli/
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economicssciencesAn economic condition in which a small number of sellers exert control over the market of a commodity.
- Because of the ease of collusion, particularly price fixing, duopolies and oligopolies easily produce outcomes as bad for the general public as outright monopolies.
- For the sheep are falling into few and powerful hands; and these, if they have not a monopoly, have at least an oligopoly, and can keep up the price.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。