efficiently
adverb
Simple meaning
In a way that gets good results with little wasted time, effort or money.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihfishuhntleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪˈfɪʃəntli
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.
adverb
With efficiency; in an efficient manner
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: With efficiency; in an efficient manner
Used this way, efficiently is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use efficiently
- “He functions efficiently.”adverb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Being effective without wasting time or effort or expense.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: with efficiency
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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.