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).

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 business simulator game, typically involving building and managing some form of infrastructure.

   Synonym: tycoon game

   • 2007 May 17, Rusel Demaria, Reset: Changing the Way We Look at Video Games, National Geographic Books:

     Zoo Tycoon is only one of several "tycoon" types of games, such as Railroad Tycoon, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Pizza Tycoon, and, without the "tycoon" title, but with all the fun and challenge, The Movies.

   • 2025, James Binns, “This funny game mashes up Sim City and Cities Skylines to create a parking hell”, in GearNuke‎^[2]:

     Whilst making spaces more green is generally a goal for town planning these days, this game in the style of classic tycoons like SimCity and Rollercoaster Tycoon, does the complete opposite.

3. (video games) A game 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. Common within the massively multiplayer online game platform Roblox.

   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.

4. (card games) The first placer of Tycoon.

   Antonym: beggar

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, taikoen (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)
• Icelandic: auðjöfur (is) m
• Ido: nabobo (io), magnato (io)
• Italian: magnate (it) m or f, capitano d'industria m, mogol m, mogul 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

  Latin: 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