efficient
[ih-fish-uh nt]
- performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort; having and using requisite knowledge, skill, and industry; competent; capable: a reliable, efficient assistant.
- satisfactory and economical to use: Our new air conditioner is more efficient than our old one.
- producing an effect, as a cause; causative.
- utilizing a particular commodity or product with the least waste of resources or effort (usually used in combination): a fuel-efficient engine.
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Origin of efficient
Synonyms
See more synonyms for efficient on Thesaurus.com1. effectual. See effective.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for efficient
Contemporary Examples
Build evidence about the practices, policies, and programs that will achieve the most effective and efficient results.
Bureaucratic inertia is, by long tradition, the most efficient dispatcher of scandals.
It was all so efficient, and also much more fun and inventive than an app.
France, and indeed Europe, was on the cusp of a new kind of living where governments needed to be efficient.
Some call this HIV anxiety ignorant, and argue that protocols on both sides of the industry are efficient in their own ways.
Risky Business or None of Your Business? Gay XXX Films and the Condom QuestionAurora Snow
November 1, 2014
Historical Examples
Why did not your most efficient employers dispatch an ordinary assassin?
The Leopard WomanStewart Edward White
What this efficient cause is, is a question that awakens no responsive inquiry.
Life: Its True GenesisR. W. Wright
And all your Science you have turned to the efficient slaughter of men.
The HarborErnest Poole
Thus we are led forward always from facts to their efficient causes.
The Truth About WomanC. Gasquoine Hartley
Certainly, they115 are not so efficient as those of the older country; how could they be?
Culture and CookingCatherine Owen
efficient
- functioning or producing effectively and with the least waste of effort; competent
- philosophy producing a direct effect; causative
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Word Origin
C14: from Latin efficiēns effecting
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for efficient
adj.
"capable of producing the desired effect," late 14c., "making, producing immediate effect," from Old French efficient and directly from Latin efficientem (nominative efficiens) "effective, efficient, producing, active," present participle of efficere "work out, accomplish" (see effect). Meaning "productive, skilled" is from 1787. Related: Efficiently.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper