optimal
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
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.
Optimal gifts—maximum happiness per dollar, minimal waste, and a distribution mechanism that respects revealed preference.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 23, 2025
Optimal bone health starts in utero, but our prepubescent years are key to setting our skeleton up for later life.
From Salon • May 1, 2024
Jung is senior author of a study, "Optimal free-surface pumping by an undulating carpet," which published in Nature Communications.
From Science Daily • Dec. 4, 2023
You will find lots of information about the benefits of adequate vitamin D in preventing cancer, cardiovascular complications, kidney disease, high blood pressure and diabetes in our “eGuide to vitamin D and Optimal Health.”
From Seattle Times • Nov. 8, 2023
This suggested to me the Optimal Fragmentation Principle: innovation proceeds most rapidly in a society with some optimal intermediate degree of fragmentation: a too-unified society is at a disadvantage, and so is a too-fragmented society.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
