IELTS business vocabulary
Business vocabulary helps in IELTS whenever a question touches on companies, shopping or advertising. Writing Task 2 asks whether advertisement should be restricted, whether large companies have too much power, or whether people buy more than they need. In Speaking Part 3, the examiner may ask why some brand names are so popular or how small shops can survive against big chains.
This deck groups the core words of commerce. For types of organisation, learn company, corporation, enterprise and startup, and for people, entrepreneur, investor, shareholder, consumer, customer and client. A customer buys goods in a shop, while a client usually pays for a professional service, such as advice from a lawyer. For money, you have profit, loss, revenue, investment, budget and loan.
Markets and competition are frequent themes. Use supply and demand to explain prices, competition and competitor to describe rivalry, and monopoly when one company controls a market. Merger describes two companies joining together. For trade, learn export, import, retail and wholesale: retail means selling to the public, while wholesale means selling large amounts to other businesses.
Advertising questions need marketing, advertise and brand. Notice the word family: you advertise a product (verb), run an advertisement (noun) and work in advertising (the industry). Many candidates use "advertising" when they mean a single advert, so this distinction is worth practising. Other useful pairs are manufacture and manufacturer, commerce and commercial.
In Writing Task 1, business vocabulary also helps with charts about sales, exports or company profits. A sentence such as "Revenue from exports rose steadily, while profits from retail fell" combines topic words with trend language, which is exactly the mix examiners like to see.
Study these 43 words Take a quiz
43 business words with definitions
| Word | Pronunciation | Part of speech | Definition | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| business | /ˈbɪznəs/ | n. | the making, buying, or selling goods or services for money | A1 |
| company | /ˈkʌmpəni/ | n. | a business that sells things or provides services | A1 |
| corporation | /ˌkɔːpəˈreɪʃən/ | n. | big company or a combination of several companies | B2 |
| enterprise | /'entəpraiz/ | n. | a business or organization | L1 |
| industry | /ˈɪndəstri/ | n. | factories or businesses that make certain products | B1 |
| commercial | /kəˈmɜːʃəl/ | adj. | radio or television advertisement | B2 |
| commerce | /ˈkɒmɜːs/ | n. | The activity of buying and selling goods and services | B2 |
| market | /ˈmɑːkɪt/ | n. | public event where people sell goods on tables | A1 |
| marketing | /ˈmɑːkɪtɪŋ/ | n. | activities that identify customers' needs and promote products or services | B2 |
| advertise | /ˈædvətaɪz/ | v. | to show how good a product is, to make people buy | B1 |
| advertisement | /ədˈvɜːtɪsmənt/ | n. | a picture, short film, text, etc., that tells people about a product or service | A2 |
| brand | /brænd/ | n. | name given to a product or service | B1 |
| consumer | /kənˈsjuːmə/ | n. | person who uses goods or services; individual buyer | B1 |
| customer | /ˈkʌstəmə/ | n. | someone who buys goods or services from a business | A2 |
| client | /ˈklaɪənt/ | n. | person paying for professional services | B1 |
| product | /ˈprɒdʌkt/ | n. | item that can be bought | A2 |
| service | /ˈsɜːvɪs/ | n. | to maintain a piece of machinery so it runs well | A2 |
| profit | /ˈprɒfɪt/ | n. | to earn money from something | B1 |
| loss | /lɒs/ | n. | experience or state of failing to have or keep | B1 |
| revenue | /'revinju:/ | n. | money that is made by or paid to a business | L1 |
| investment | /ɪnˈvestmənt/ | n. | something purchased hoping its value will increase | B2 |
| investor | /in'vestə/ | n. | a person who gives money to help a business grow for a profit | L1 |
| shareholder | /'ʃєə.həuldə/ | n. | someone who owns a part of a corporation | L2 |
| competition | /ˌkɒmpəˈtɪʃən/ | n. | fighting against others when trying to win something | A2 |
| competitor | /kəmˈpetɪtə/ | n. | someone taking part in a race, business, etc. | B1 |
| monopoly | /məˈnɒpəli/ | adv. | complete control of the market for a service or product | C1 |
| merger | /'mə:dʒə/ | n. | n the combination of two or more commercial companies; n an occurrence that involves the production of a union | L2 |
| supply | /səˈplaɪ/ | v. | to give or sell goods to others for their use | B1 |
| demand | /dɪˈmɑːnd/ | n. | to strongly request someone to do something; insist | B1 |
| export | /ɪkˈspɔːt/ | v. | to send goods to be sold in another country | B1 |
| import | /im'pɒ:t/ | n. | to bring items or goods from one country into another | L2 |
| trade | /treɪd/ | n. | to buy, sell and exchange goods in business | B1 |
| retail | /ˈriːteɪl/ | n. | concerning the business of selling products to the public for personal use | B2 |
| wholesale | /'həulseil/ | n. | the selling of goods to merchants; sell in large quantities | L3 |
| manufacturer | /.mænju'fæktʃərə/ | n. | a person or company that makes a product | L1 |
| manufacture | /ˌmænjʊˈfæktʃə/ | v. | to produce large numbers of products in a factory | B2 |
| entrepreneur | /ˌɒntrəprəˈnɜː/ | n. | someone who starts a business and takes financial risks | B2 |
| startup | the act of setting in operation | L3 | ||
| franchise | /ˈfræntʃaɪz/ | n. | permission to trade under another company's name, or that business | C1 |
| strategy | /ˈstrætədʒi/ | n. | careful plan or method for achieving a goal | B2 |
| budget | /ˈbʌdʒɪt/ | n. | amount of money planned to be spent on something | B2 |
| finance | /ˈfaɪnæns/ | n. | control of money a person/business has access to | B2 |
| loan | /ləʊn/ | n. | something (usually money) that is given to someone for a period of time with a promise that it will be returned | B1 |
How to use these words in Writing and Speaking
Use the cards in short daily sessions. Words you learn today come back tomorrow for an overnight review, then at longer and longer intervals as you remember them. To build active use, take a familiar company and explain in a few sentences how it makes a profit, who its competitors are and how it markets its products, using words from this deck.
Other topics
Data sources and credits
- Headwords and English definitions: New General Service List 1.2 & New Academic Word List 1.2 — Browne, C., Culligan, B. & Phillips, J., CC BY-SA 4.0
- Phonetics, CEFR levels, example sentences and Chinese glosses: Word Atlas — Word Atlas contributors — CC BY 4.0. Modified: fields selected, senses shortened, Chinese converted to Traditional characters.
- More phonetics and Chinese translations: ECDICT (MIT)
- Scheduling: ts-fsrs (MIT)
- The topic decks and all page texts are our own.