Exploitation

How to spell exploitation

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce exploitation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does exploitation mean?

1. nounThe act of treating people unfairly in order to benefit from their work.
2. nounThe act of making productive use of a resource or opportunity.

Exploitation in a sentence

• The documentary exposed the exploitation of migrant workers on the farm.

• The company secured rights for the exploitation of the offshore oil field.

• New laws aim to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable employees.

• Sustainable exploitation of forests balances logging with replanting.

Where does exploitation come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English from French exploitation in the nineteenth century, built on the verb exploiter, 'to make productive use of'. The deeper root is the Old French noun esploit, from the Latin explicitum, 'a thing unfolded or settled', which in turn derives from explicare, meaning literally 'to unfold' or 'to unravel' (from ex-, 'out', and plicare, 'to fold'). The same plicare root gives English a whole family of fold words such as 'explicit', 'imply', 'complicate', and 'pliable'. The earliest English uses were neutral, describing the working of mines, land, or resources to draw value out of them, but during the era of industrial labour disputes the word picked up its strong moral sense of treating people unfairly for profit. The hidden spelling trap is the silent French legacy in -ploit- and the long -ation tail, since neither is sounded the way it looks.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• ploit (from Latin plicare/explicare: to unfold, deploy)
• -ation (noun of action)