banana republic
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
A country with a unstable government and economy
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
quốc gia có chính phủ và kinh tế không ổn định
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: a republic of bananas
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
This is proof of the erosive effects of past inflation rate which climbed to banana republic levels in the 1970s.
Putin, for his part, “ built ” a great energy power, turning the country into a banana ~ republic with hydrocarbons.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “banana republic” mean?
A country with a unstable government and economy Literally: a republic of bananas
Is “banana republic” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.