the.com/price war

means A competitive spiral in which rival sellers repeatedly undercut each other's prices to win customers, often until profit margins vanish.

from A straightforward 20th-century compound, borrowing the martial vocabulary business loves — 'war,' 'battle,' 'campaign,' 'target market' — to dress commerce up as combat. The metaphor caught on because the stakes feel real: there are casualties (bankrupt competitors), strategy (loss leaders, retaliation pricing), and a victor left holding the market. No single coiner is on record; it emerged naturally alongside other economic 'war' terms like trade war and tariff war.