diminishing returns

[dih-min-ish-ing ri-turnz]

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.

diminishing returns

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of diminishing returns¹

First recorded in 1805–15

Example Sentences

That decision by McLaren was rooted in the fact that they were seeing diminishing returns in developing this car, common when a design has such an advantage at the start of a season, and that they wanted to ensure they were well prepared for next year, when new chassis and engine rules could turn F1 on its head.

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I want to say this in a very tactful way, but the risk of doing this kind of show is that there is a point, I believe, of diminishing returns when we talk about food.

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I think we can safely say that he was unsuccessful at all but the donor part and even that eventually led to diminishing returns.

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It is an interesting strategy, not least because I wonder at what point diminishing returns kick in when Labour is kicking out at its predecessor, when it's approaching the first anniversary of taking office itself.

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"And this suggests that the growing development timelines and budgets that are fuelling these longer games have reached a point of diminishing returns," he says.

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