Proper noun
(historical) The four top Allied powers of World War I and their leaders: David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Woodrow Wilson of the United States, who met at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 at Versailles.
Synonyms: Council of Four, The Four Nations
A group of four entrepreneurs who formed the Central Pacific Railroad.
(music) A jazz rhythm derived from the marching band beat.
Any group of four major or largest corporations in a given industry, especially when such a small group has oligopoly or near-oligopoly; as:
(finance) The four largest banks in any of various countries, or (internationally) the Federal Reserve, People's Bank of China, Bank of Japan, and European Central Bank.
(finance, business, technology) The four largest corporations of Big Tech during the 2000s-2020s, usually defined as Alphabet (f.k.a. Google), Meta (f.k.a. Facebook), Amazon, and Apple.
(business, accounting) The four largest global auditing firms, comprising Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
(UK, historical) The four largest railway companies in the United Kingdom in the period 1923–1947: the Great Western Railway (GWR); the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS); the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER); and the Southern Railway (SR).
Source: en.wiktionary.orgA brief passage in The Big Four provides original information about Poirot's birth or at least childhood in or near the town of Spa, Belgium : "But we did not go into Spa itself. Source: Internet
Accounting and finance majors at Lehigh are heavily recruited by Big Four auditors and many consulting firms. Source: Internet
Apart from his Big Four Agenda, one of his greatest ventures has been the standard gauge railway. Source: Internet
Construction The Jupiter, which carried Leland Stanford (one of the "Big Four" owners of the Central Pacific) and other railway officials to the Last Spike Ceremony. Source: Internet
Anthrax released Among the Living the following year, and by the end of 1987 these bands, alongside Metallica, were being called the "Big Four" of thrash metal. Source: Internet
Big four Bolden is also credited with the invention of the "Big Four", a key rhythmic innovation on the marching band beat, which gave embryonic jazz much more room for individual improvisation. Source: Internet