baron
n.a person who has a lot of power and influence in a specific industry. You use this to describe someone who controls a large business empire.
n.a person of great power, influence, or wealth within a specific field of commerce or industry. Often used metaphorically to describe industrial magnates.
“The local oil baron owns most of the land in this town.”
“The media baron expanded his influence by purchasing several regional newspapers and a national television station.”
“Historians often debate whether the nineteenth-century rail barons were visionary builders of infrastructure or merely ruthless opportunists who exploited their workers.”
Commonly paired with a specific industry, such as 'press baron', 'robber baron', or 'drug baron'.
“The BBC has learned she is in talks about a role in Netflix series The Gentlemen , a comedy series created by Guy Ritchie about a duke who becomes a drug baron.”
“The Gentlemen, starring the actor Theo James, is a comedy series about a duke who becomes a drug baron.”
* As a French, English, Jewish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Czech, German, Spanish (Barón), Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, and Breton surname, all from the noun baron. Compare Barron, Lebaron. * Also as a French surname, from several places in France Le Baron. * As an Italian (Veneto) surname, variant of Barone. * Also as a Czech surname (Baroň), from a pet form of Bartoloměj. * As an Irish surname, Anglicized from Ó Bearáin; see Barnes. * General Slavic surname: Anglicization of Polish Baran (“Aries”), Ukrainian Баран (Baran), etc.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.