Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Acting directly to produce an effect: an efficient cause. See Synonyms at effective.
- adj. Acting or producing effectively with a minimum of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort.
- adj. Exhibiting a high ratio of output to input.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Producing outward effects; of a nature to produce a result; active; causative.
- Acting or able to act with due effect; adequate in performance; bringing to bear the requisite knowledge, skill, and industry; capable; competent: as, an efficient workman, director, or commander.
- Synonyms Efficacious, Effectual, etc. (see effective); energetic, operative, active, ready, helpful.
- n. An efficient cause (see above).
- n. One who is efficient or qualified; specifically, in the volunteer service of Great Britain, one who has attended the requisite number of drills, and in respect of whom the corps receives the capitation grant paid by government.
- n. In mathematics, a quantity multiplied by another quantity to produce the quantity of which it is said to be an efficient; a factor.
Wiktionary
- adj. Making good, thorough, or careful use of resources; not consuming extra. Especially, making good use of time or energy.
- adj. Using a particular proportion of available energy.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Causing effects; producing results; that makes the effect to be what it is; actively operative; not inactive, slack, or incapable; characterized by energetic and useful activity.
- n. An efficient cause; a prime mover.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. able to accomplish a purpose; functioning effectively
- adj. being effective without wasting time or effort or expense
Etymologies
- 1398, "making," from Latin efficientem (nominative efficiens), preposition of efficere "work out, accomplish" (see effect). Meaning "productive, skilled" is from 1787. Efficiency apartment is first recorded 1930, American English. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, from Latin efficiēns, efficient-, present participle of efficere, to effect; see effect. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“If he left the "road" and became a _very_ efficient common laborer, some _ordinarily efficient_ common laborer would have to take to the "road.”
“Now, when the advocates of free-agency insist that motive is not the efficient cause of volition, and that mind is the efficient cause thereof, we suppose them to employ the expression, _efficient cause_, in one and the same sense in both branches of the proposition.”
“[37] I use the term efficient in a technical sense, as meaning all-sufficient to produce the given effect, without the intervention of any other cause.”
“That isn't to deny that a war with tens of thousands of people doesn't have a significant administrative overhead; rather, that focusing on this overhead (which laughs at the term efficient) ends up seriously degrading our ability to actually achieve victory.”
“Sure, the critique depends on misinterpreting what the word "efficient" means, as in the "efficient markets hypothesis.”
“All we need to do to make the health care system cheaper and more efficient is to remove the dilution of responsibility and cost, thus rewarding people who eat right, stay healthy, and live risk-averse lives.”
Insurance industry has had a 'long enough time,' Pelosi says
“Investing in efficient and clean energy creates jobs in manufacturing, sales, installation, and servicing of wind turbines, solar panels, and super efficient buildings.”
Clean Energy for Prosperity and Security (Blog for Democracy)
“If you believe in efficient markets you should also believe in the toothfairy.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Greenspan’s ‘The Crisis’ and Modigliani and Miller
“If you believe in efficient markets, then you should be very skeptical of the rest of this post.”
Inefficient Market?, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“How efficient is it in transporting gun, hunter, and game out of the woods that may be hilly, have rough terrain, etc”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘efficient’.
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CONT - general terms
additionality, audit trail, accounting standards, auditing standards, general audit obj..., a posteriori audit, a priori audit, above board, acceptable error ..., access rights, accountability, accountable entities and 1283 more...
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Mirrored Vowels
Rules:
• The word must have an even number of vowels.
• There must be four or more vowels; thus, at minimum, an A-A-A-A or A-B-B-A pattern.
• The vowels must appear in a mir...feminine, solicitor, caruncular, repackager, semiprimes, fetishises, decomposer, demonlover, recomposer, sepultures, lipotropic, colesterol and 385 more...
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Gesundheit
Words that sound like sneezes
zucchini, zoology, wysiwyg, woodchuck, withhold, wichita, vacuum, twelfth, syzygy, synchronous, swatch, supersede and 120 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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EU Buzz - single words (1+2+3)
1. Strictly EU terms with special European meaning used only in the EU
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2. Keywords central to the understanding of the EU (people working for the EU are usually able to give thematic...acceleration, action, additionality, administrator, agenda, agricultural, agri-environmental, agriflation, agri-food, applicant, approach, assent and 1325 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Economists do it with models
arbitrage, behaviour, capital, dromography, embargo, fiscal, globalisation, hyperinflation, incentive, j-curve, keynesian, labour and 143 more...
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The Medley of Me
A jumble of words, sometimes contradictory, that add up to me. I'll probably be adding to this list for some time, because I'm a very complex individual. ;P
male, long-haired, big-eyed, writer, artist, guitarist, songsmith, talespinner, pilot, wannabe barnstormer, gypsy, cuddlesome and 209 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
grabbable, retuiteando, leaving, fantastic, absolutely, kurwa, hella, ridic, underpass, hate, interlude, plush and 2369 more... -
-fac-, -fec-, -fic-
make; do
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
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Favorite Words
quixotic, assonance, palindrome, plebeian, mezzanine, propinquity, etymology, antihero, intrepid, refractions, lawless, sesquipedalian and 237 more...
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feeling words
twitterpated, loquacious, ambiguous, pensive, sluggish, anxious, adventurous, curious, abandoned, absent-minded, abrasive, abused and 653 more...
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worddom
put words in their place
theca, wisdom, kingdom, freedom, boredom, seldom, martyrdom, abdomen, doom, samhita, duma, dumka and 151 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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Jacqueline's Words
glittery, horny, amazing, wanderlust, forlorn, lustily, nonchalant, cool, passive, submissive, roundabout, carousel and 558 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for efficient.
reesetee This is one freaky thread. Sep 24, 2007
kewpid efficient and sex would seem to be oxymoronic, though the Germans are said to be efficient lovers. Sep 24, 2007
palooka I miss Jacqueline. Every time I do something efficiently I think of her. I really do. (Sigh). Sep 24, 2007
oroboros Uh huh...wait! Does efficient sex mean multiple orgasms? If not, maybe efficiency is not all it's cracked up to be... Jun 26, 2007
palooka You can learn so much on Wordie - & so efficiently. Jun 26, 2007
jacqueline For some reason, this word sexually arouses me. I think it's because I like my men efficient. Efficient man, efficient sex, mm. Jun 22, 2007