optimal
Americanadjective
adjective
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Etymology
Origin of optimal
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How does optimal compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Something that's optimal is the best or most favorable for a given situation. Flowers? Check. Chocolates? Check. Dinner reservation? Check. Sounds like you have the optimal conditions for a successful anniversary date. There's an implication with optimal that certain restrictions exist in a given situation, so that what is optimal isn't necessarily the ideal scenario — it's the best one given those limitations. For example, optimal population levels for a species are not the highest levels — instead they're the best levels that a particular environment can sustain. Often the word optimum is used interchangeably with optimal.
Vocabulary lists containing optimal
What If It's Us
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The Martian
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Apple
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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.
"This ensures optimal coupling of the metasurface to the detection elements," notes corresponding author Wladislaw Michailow, who led the research at the University of Cambridge and later at Swansea University in the UK.
From Science Daily • May 31, 2026
Stronger stewardship and listed companies’ shift toward greater capital efficiency, shareholder returns and optimal leverage should lift their price-to-earnings and price-to-book multiples.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 21, 2026
That does not give you an exact time frame — the optimal one is sometime between now and when you die.
From MarketWatch • May 21, 2026
Then she advises readers that the purpose of exercise is to achieve an optimal “waist-to-hip” ratio supposedly preferred by men.
From Salon • May 8, 2026
The Distracter showed that no single segment of the Sesame Street format should go beyond four minutes, and that three minutes was probably optimal.
From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
