1550s, "a written challenge," from Middle French cartel (16c.), from Italian cartello "placard," diminutive of carta "card" (see card (n.1)). It came to mean "written agreement between challengers" (1690s) and then "a written agreement between challengers" (1889). Sense of "a commercial trust, an association of industrialists" comes 1902, via German Kartell, which is from French. The older U.S. term for that is trust (n.). The usual German name for them was Interessengemeinschaft, abbreviated IG.
雙語例句
1. He acted as a frontman for a drugs cartel.
他給一個毒品集團當掩護。
來自《權威詞典》
2. Since 1993 OPEC, the oil cartel dominated by Saudi Arabia, has kept its output constant at around 25m barrels a day.