efficient

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See also: efficiënt

English

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.

Pronunciation

Adjective

efficient (comparative more efficient, superlative most efficient)

  1. making good, thorough, or careful use of resources; not consuming extra. Especially, making good use of time or energy
    An efficient process would automate all the routine work.
    Our cleaners are almost too efficient: they throw away anything left out on a desk.
    • 2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist‎, volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly):
      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.
  2. expressing the proportion of consumed energy that was successfully used in a process; the ratio of useful output to total input
    The motor is only 20% efficient at that temperature.
  3. causing effects, producing results; bringing into being; initiating change (rare except in philosophical and legal expression efficient cause = causative factor or agent)
    Ownership, maintenance, or use of the automobile need not be the direct and efficient cause of the injury sustained
  4. (proscribed, old use) effective, efficacious
    • 1801, Robert Southey, “(please specify the page)”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: or T N Longman and O Rees, , by Biggs and Cottle, , →OCLC:
      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!
    • 1856, William Dexter Wilson, An Elementary Treatise on Logic:
      The Efficient Cause is that from which emanates the force that produces the Effect

Usage notes

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary from 1913 still lists efficient and effective as synonyms, but all major dictionaries now show that these words now only have different meanings in careful use. Use of both for the other meaning is however widespread enough that Longman's Exam Dictionary, for example, finds it necessary to proscribe the use of one for the other with several examples at each entry and provides the following summary:

  • efficient (“working quickly and without waste”)
  • effective (“having the desired effect”)

Antonyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

efficient (plural efficients)

  1. (obsolete) a cause; something that causes an effect
    • 1643, Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, I.14:
      Some are without efficient, as God; others without matter, as Angels […].
    • a. 1758, Jonathan Edwards, Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity:
      This implies, that something happens without a cause. If it should be said, that motive in this case is not the efficient of the action or doing — this is granted; but at the same time, for reasons already given, it is denied, that the man himself is the efficient cause of it.

Derived terms

References

  1. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “efficient”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Danish

Adjective

efficient

  1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Inflection

Inflection of efficient
Positive Comparative Superlative
Indefinte common singular efficient — —2
Indefinite neuter singular efficient — —2
Plural efficiente — —2
Definite attributive1 efficiente — —
1) When an adjective is applied predicatively to something definite, the corresponding "indefinite" form is used.
2) The "indefinite" superlatives may not be used attributively.

Further reading

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin efficientem.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

efficient (feminine efficiente, masculine plural efficients, feminine plural efficientes)

  1. efficient
  2. effective

Related terms

Further reading

Latin

Pronunciation

Verb

efficient

  1. third-person plural future active indicative of efficiō
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