efficient
adjective
Simple meaning
Making good, thorough, or careful use of resources.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihfishuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪˈfɪʃənt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Making good, thorough, or careful use of resources; not consuming extra. Especially, making good use of time or energy.
Expressing the proportion of consumed energy that was successfully used in a process; the ratio of useful output to total input.
Causing effects, producing results; bringing into being; initiating change (rare except in philosophical and legal expression efficient cause = causative factor or agent).
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Making good, thorough, or careful use of resources; not consuming extra. Especially, making good use of time or energy.
Used this way, efficient is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It quietly approves while staying precise.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Careful and exacting
- Usage feel
- Precise and approving
Nearby words
- timesaving , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use efficient
- “An efficient production manager.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Causing / cause
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: making good or thorough
Antonyms
Sense: making good or thorough
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.