diminishing returns
any rate of profit, production, benefits, etc., that beyond a certain point fails to increase proportionately with added investment, effort, or skill.
Also called law of diminishing returns. Economics. the fact, often stated as a law or principle, that when any factor of production, as labor, is increased while other factors, as capital and land, are held constant in amount, the output per unit of the variable factor will eventually diminish.
Origin of diminishing returns
1Words Nearby diminishing returns
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use diminishing returns in a sentence
I think if you keep trying to do things the same way it becomes diminishing returns.
As with any exercise, it can be overdone to the point of diminishing returns and negative health consequences.
The Federal Reserve has continued to support the economy with unprecedented levels of bond-buying but with diminishing returns.
The juggernaut franchise that has made obscene amounts of money may have finally reached the point of diminishing returns.
‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’ Review: The Juggernaut Franchise Might Be Drying Up | Alec Kubas-Meyer | November 12, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTThe duo has replicated this formula with diminishing returns—the last one, Humans After All, being the dud.
Daft Punk Goes Back to the Future With ‘Random Access Memories’ | Tricia Romano | May 21, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
In agriculture the law is the opposite one of diminishing returns.
The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) | Leslie StephenHe denied the universal truth, for all stages of cultivation, of the law of diminishing returns from land.
The law of diminishing returns applies to mining as well as to agriculture.
Essentials of Economic Theory | John Bates ClarkAlways the worst time of day, the old man pondered, a process of diminishing returns.
The Land of Look Behind | Paul Cameron BrownHow far the operation of the law of diminishing returns will allow this tendency to proceed we cannot here discuss.
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism | John Atkinson Hobson
British Dictionary definitions for diminishing returns
progressively smaller rises in output resulting from the increased application of a variable input, such as labour, to a fixed quantity, as of capital or land
the increase in the average cost of production that may arise beyond a certain point as a result of increasing the overall scale of production
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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