{
  "id": "too-big-to-fail.margin",
  "term": "too big to fail",
  "sense": "margin",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 15,
  "domain": "economics",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A thing has grown so large that the work to hold it inside its window would break the system that holds it, and the model of what can persist has already shifted to assume its continued existence.",
  "folk_gloss": "A thing that is so large that its failure would cause too much damage, so it must be protected.",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "window.range",
      "maintenance.upkeep",
      "model.representation",
      "boundary.limit",
      "scale.parameter"
    ],
    "interaction": "interaction.process",
    "novel_properties": [
      "margin.spatial",
      "robustness.resilient"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "too big to fail"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — margin eaten by optimization"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-too-big-to-fail.margin"
}