sweetheart deal

noun

plural sweetheart deals

chiefly US

: an unusually advantageous arrangement or agreement

If they wanted to leave, they could have done so before the stadium expansion and received a sweetheart deal from someplace else.

—Nick Canepa

especially : one that is obtained through personal or business connections or influence

His original 606,302 investment—most of it borrowed from a bank where he was once a director—netted him a fortune of $18.4 million, and accusations that he had benefited from a sweetheart deal.

—David Hume Kennerly

The company also used its clout to cut through the logjam of carrier requirements that had stifled innovation in the phone industry for years, essentially forcing AT&T into a sweetheart deal that put Apple in the driver's seat.

—Brian X. Chen

Examples of sweetheart deal in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The families argued that the amount of the fine amounted to a sweetheart deal for Boeing, letting it off the hook for the two fatal crashes that were caused by a design flaw on the planes. —Chris Isidore, CNN, 6 Dec. 2024

Jewish students at Rutgers are accusing the Biden administration of cutting a sweetheart deal that lets the New Jersey university off the hook for allowing a persistent culture of antisemitism. —Fox News Staff, Fox News, 16 Jan. 2025

The Miami-Dade prosecutor had given Brown a sweetheart deal: 25 years in prison and immunity from prosecution for one of Miami’s worst mass shootings. —Brittany Wallman, Miami Herald, 2 Jan. 2025

In 2013, an initial inquiry was launched into whether Apple had engaged in sweetheart deals with Ireland to lower its tax bills. —Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes, 30 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1948, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for sweetheart deal

• afebrile
• bookmobile
• cochineal
• nonideal
• peroneal
• philomel
• popliteal
• snowmobile
• waterwheel
• abele
• alkyl
• anneal