Meaning & use

laissez-faire

adjective·Advanced

Allowing individuals or businesses to act freely, with minimal government or authority intervention.

See it in a sentence

The company adopted a laissez-faire management style, letting employees set their own schedules.

Laissez-faire economic policies reduce regulation and let markets operate on their own.

A note on using this word

Borrowed from French, literally "let do"; it is most common in discussions of economics and management style.

Words with a similar meaning

hands-offnoninterventionist

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Words with an opposite meaning

interventionist

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