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:
“Delivered end-to-end in a single unified system, purpose-built from the ground up to deliver speed, performance, and efficiency on the most demanding AI workloads.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Meeting market expectations, alongside with AI-driven growth and efficiency gains, should support a rerating, though it might take some time for this to happen, they say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 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
Congress could create an efficiency and technology office with data access across agencies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
It was also why he had organized the house on an efficiency basis, so that it would operate smoothly without supervision; so that the older children would be responsible for the younger ones.
From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
There have been mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, overlaps, layoffs, and quote-unquote efficiencies all along the way.
From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2026
Yet, just as quickly, blowback followed: generative AI flooded social media with confusing slop and copyright threats; AI efficiencies were blamed—fairly or not—for job cuts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 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
What he admits to be an “unscientific” extrapolation of corporate claims of AI-linked efficiencies shows businesses enjoying an average 150 basis points of margin improvement.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 10, 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.
