Meaning of gatekeeper in English

gatekeeper

noun [ C ]

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/ˈɡeɪtˌkiː.pər/ us

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/ˈɡeɪtˌkiː.pɚ/

a person whose job is to open and close a gate and to prevent people entering without permission

someone who has the power to decide who gets particular resources and opportunities, and who does not :

The professors act as gatekeepers who determine which students are admitted into the competetive engineering program.

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(Definition of gatekeeper from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

gatekeeper | Business English

gatekeeper

noun [ C ]

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/ˈɡeɪtˌkiːpər/ us

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/-pɚ/

a person or organization that controls whether people can have or use a particular service:

British Telecom lost its gatekeeper status when it was forced to open up the local network to other companies.

(Definition of gatekeeper from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of gatekeeper

gatekeeper

The oldest interviewees were particularly reluctant to trust those who were in effect the gatekeepers to health and social services.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Most interviews were conducted in the gatekeeper's own house and usually entailed a single meeting.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Local practitioners must publish then and let the so-called gatekeepers do their duty.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In every community there are personnel (for example, key workers, volunteers, 'community gatekeepers') who are also consulted by its members at times of need.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

We are taking this issue seriously, because we recognize that journals are seen as the gatekeepers of published research.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

There were several gatekeepers to inpatient admissions at voluntary hospitals.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The role of designer agents in this system is to generate and present their artifacts for assessment by adopters and gatekeepers.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The number of gatekeepers who were women is roughly comparable to those found in sociology.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The authority of these gatekeepers can, of course, be challenged.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

With the implementation of care management, social workers metamorphosed with variable pace and success from advocates to gatekeepers.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Such a focus directs our attention back to the demand side of the market and the recruitment practices of employers and other gatekeepers.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The authorities hired physicians as gatekeepers to identify desirable and undesirable traits that went beyond the definition of communicable disease.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In contrast, in societies with lower tie strength and therefore where influence is distributed rather than concentrated, there is a higher change rate of gatekeepers.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Findings showed a marked difference in treatment patterns between gatekeepers and child psychiatrists.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

There has recently been an increasing focus on the way that social landlords can use their powers as gatekeepers.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.