diminishing returns

American  

[dih-min-ish-ing ri-turnz] / dɪˈmɪn ɪʃ ɪŋ rɪˈtɜrnz /

noun

1. any rate of profit, production, benefits, etc., that beyond a certain point fails to increase proportionately with added investment, effort, or skill.

2. 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.

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diminishing returns British  

plural noun

1. 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

2. 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

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Etymology

Origin of diminishing returns

First recorded in 1805–15

Example Sentences

They also used the shortest path in a non-Riemannian space to account for diminishing returns in color perception, another effect that had not been fully captured by the older approach.

From Science Daily • Jun. 7, 2026

But keep in mind that there does come a point of diminishing returns.

From MarketWatch • May 15, 2026

Larger teams outperform small ones up to about five members, Uzzi says, but after that, you tend to get diminishing returns.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 5, 2026

For Iran’s beleaguered government, winning requires hunkering down as its attackers face diminishing returns from each new day of battle.

From Barron's • Mar. 17, 2026

Another is "the law of diminishing returns of agriculture," that you can get only so much product out of a certain piece of land, no matter how much labor and capital you put into it.

From The Book of Life by Sinclair, Upton