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Efficient
Definitions
- 1 Making good, thorough, or careful use of resources; not consuming extra. Especially, making good use of time or energy.
"An efficient process would automate all the routine work."
- 2 Expressing the proportion of consumed energy that was successfully used in a process; the ratio of useful output to total input.
"The motor is only 20% efficient at that temperature."
- 3 Causing effects, producing results; bringing into being; initiating change (rare except in philosophical and legal expression efficient cause = causative factor or agent).
"Ownership, maintenance, or use of the automobile need not be the direct and efficient cause of the injury sustained"
- 4 effective, efficacious proscribed
"Ye wake no more to anguish;‥ ye have borne The Chosen, the Destroyer!‥ soon his hand Shall strike the efficient blow; Soon shaking off your penal forms, shall ye, With songs of joy, amid the Eden groves, Hymn the Deliverer’s praise!"
- 1 able to accomplish a purpose; functioning effectively wordnet
- 2 being effective without wasting time or effort or expense wordnet
- 1 A cause; something that causes an effect. obsolete
"Some are without efficient, as God; others without matter, as Angels […]."
Etymology
1398, “making,” from Old French, from Latin efficientem, nominative efficiēns, participle of efficere (“work out, accomplish”) (see effect). Meaning “productive, skilled” is from 1787. Efficiency apartment is first recorded 1930, American English.
1398, “making,” from Old French, from Latin efficientem, nominative efficiēns, participle of efficere (“work out, accomplish”) (see effect). Meaning “productive, skilled” is from 1787. Efficiency apartment is first recorded 1930, American English.
See also for "efficient"
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