efficient
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪˈfɪʃənt/
ipa: /ɪˈfɪʃənt/
ipa: /əˈfɪʃənt/
note: Indic
ipa: /ᵻˈfiʃɪəɳʈ/
rhymes: -ɪʃənt
Forms: form: more efficient
form: most efficient
Etymology: 1398, “making,” from Old French, from Latin efficientem, nominative efficiēns, participle of efficere (“work out, accomplish”) (see effect). Meaning “productive, skilled” is from 1787. Efficiency apartment is first recorded 1930, American English.
Senses: examples: text: An efficient process would automate all the routine work.
text: Our cleaners are almost too efficient: they throw away anything left out on a desk.
text: An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic[…]real kidneys[…]. But they are nothing like as efficient, and can cause bleeding, clotting and infection—not to mention inconvenience for patients, who typically need to be hooked up to one three times a week for hours at a time.
ref: 2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly):
glosses: Making good, thorough, or careful use of resources; not consuming extra. Especially, making good use of time or energy.
examples: text: The motor is only 20% efficient at that temperature.
glosses: Expressing the proportion of consumed energy that was successfully used in a process; the ratio of useful output to total input.
examples: text: Ownership, maintenance, or use of the automobile need not be the direct and efficient cause of the injury sustained
text: It was well said of Plotinus, that the stars were significant, but not efficient.
ref: 1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5):
glosses: Causing effects, producing results; bringing into being; initiating change (rare except in philosophical and legal expression efficient cause = causative factor or agent).
examples: text: Ye wake no more to anguish;‥ ye have borne
The Chosen, the Destroyer!‥ soon his hand
Shall strike the efficient blow;
Soon shaking off your penal forms, shall ye,
With songs of joy, amid the Eden groves,
Hymn the Deliverer’s praise!
ref: 1801, Robert Southey, “(please specify the page)”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], →OCLC:
text: The Efficient Cause is that from which emanates the force that produces the Effect
ref: 1856, William Dexter Wilson, An Elementary Treatise on Logic:
qualifier: old use
glosses: effective, efficacious
Synonyms: word: economical
word: efficacious
word: efficient
word: potent
Hyponyms: word: cost-effective
word: energy-efficient
word: energy-saving
word: frugal
word: fuel-efficient
word: laboursaving
word: businesslike
word: well-oiled
Derived terms: cost-efficient
ecoefficient
efficient cause
efficient frontier
efficiently
efficient market hypothesis
efficientness
energy-efficient
energy efficient
equiefficient
hyperefficient
Kaldor-Hicks efficient
nonefficient
subefficient
superefficient
tax-efficient
ultraefficient
Related terms: word: effect
word: effective
word: effectiveness
word: effectivity
word: effector
word: effectual
word: effectuate
word: efficacious
word: efficacity
word: efficacy
word: efficiency
word: subefficiency
word: potency
word: one fell swoop
word: kill two birds with one stone
word: skill
word: skillful
word: excellent