- territory
- territory ter‧ri‧to‧ry [ˈtertri ǁ -tɔːri] noun territories PLURALFORM1. [countable, uncountable] MARKETING an area which is the responsibility of a particular salesperson:
• His sales force's territory comprises Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa and Wisconsin.
2. [countable, uncountable] land that is owned or controlled by a particular government, ruler, or military force:• The parliament has jurisdiction over minerals mined on its territory.
• Until 1997 Hong Kong was a British territory.
3. [uncountable] an area of experience or knowledge:• Statistical analysis is not the exclusive territory of a handful of specialists.
• The very competitive market is pushing firms into unfamiliar territory.
4. negative/positive/record etc territory FINANCE a situation in which financial investments fall or rise in value, or in which shares etc are higher in value or price than ever before:• On the world's major exchanges, stocks ended in negative territory.
• A late spurt of buying pulled the Dow Jones into positive territory.
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territory UK US /ˈterɪtəri/ noun (plural territories)► [C or U] an area of a town, country, etc. that someone has responsibility for in their job: »A salesman's failure to achieve apparently realistic targets might be due to a change in the size of his territory.
»Europe has been very fertile territory for our products.
► [C or U] land that belongs to a particular country: »The island is a territory of Australia.
»The four new oil contracts will amount to a half billion dollars worth of foreign investment in their territory.
► [C or U] an area of knowledge or activity: »This is a territory that lies somewhere between mainstream sport and video games.
»Online selling was new territory for us.
► [U] FINANCE the general level of a price, amount, value, etc.: »Crude oil prices are approaching unchartered territory.
»Persistent production problems helped drive oil prices further into record territory yesterday.
Financial and business terms. 2012.