efficiency
Americannoun
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efficiencies
plural
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the state or quality of being efficient, or able to accomplish something with the least waste of time and effort; competency in performance.
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accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort.
The assembly line increased industry's efficiency.
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the ratio of the work done or energy developed by a machine, engine, etc., to the energy supplied to it, usually expressed as a percentage.
noun
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the quality or state of being efficient; competence; effectiveness
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the ratio of the useful work done by a machine, engine, device, etc, to the energy supplied to it, often expressed as a percentage See also thermal efficiency
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The ratio of the energy delivered (or work done) by a machine to the energy needed (or work required) in operating the machine. The efficiency of any machine is always less than one due to forces such as friction that use up energy unproductively.
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See also mechanical advantage
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The ratio of the effective or useful output to the total input in any system.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of efficiency
First recorded in 1585–95; from Latin efficientia, from efficient- (stem of efficiēns efficient ) + -ia -y 3
Explanation
Efficiency is avoiding a waste of time, effort, or resources. Many people have begun to use compact fluorescent light bulbs because of their greater energy efficiency. Nowadays, efficiency often refers to energy efficiency, the effort to get more energy from existing resources: making cars that can go farther with less fuel, or appliances that do the same work with less electricity. But this noun isn't restricted to an environmental context. Efficiency can also simply be a measurement of what goes into a thing versus what comes out of it. A process with high efficiency requires only a little work to produce big results.
Vocabulary lists containing efficiency
Word Generation Science - Energy
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"The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury
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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Traditional fabrication relies on ultraprecision machinery to squeeze more circuits onto a single chip; Huawei is trying to improve computing efficiency through techniques such as layering circuits within a single chip.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
Teams in the Premier League counter-attack with greater efficiency so being solid behind your own attacking play is absolutely vital.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
In China, Volvo will work together with Geely on shared platforms and supply chains to boost efficiency, it added.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
Some of the latest aircraft feature cockpit windows that are also curved, to make the plane more streamlined, which improves fuel efficiency.
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
I needed to know what kind of power efficiency the rover/trailer will get.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
AI adoption, and the efficiencies and productivity gains it promises, may provide the U.S. with a plausible path to absorbing higher interest-rate costs.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026
There have been mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, overlaps, layoffs, and quote-unquote efficiencies all along the way.
From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2026
The technique produced DNA assembly efficiencies two to five times higher than those achieved with conventional restriction enzyme methods.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 19, 2026
This is due to funds under management rolling out of gestation and becoming fee earning, as well as organic net inflows and operational efficiencies, BofA says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
Having absorbed Lawrence’s confidence that further efficiencies eventually would be achieved, Groves reduced the specification for Y-12 to five hundred tanks, or five racetracks.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
