economical
Often confused with economic
- 1Saving money or other resources by costing or using less than would otherwise be needed.
Buying in bulk is more economical than picking up small packages every week.
An economical heating system pays for itself within a few winters.
Similarcheap, inexpensive, efficient, cost-effective
Oppositeexpensive, costly, uneconomical, wasteful
- 2
- 3Of a bowler or a spell of bowling in cricket, having a low economy rate, so that few runs are given away.
The spinner was economical all afternoon, conceding just 18 runs from his ten overs.
It was the most economical spell of his career: four overs for only nine runs.
Oppositeexpensive
Note
Cricket measures a bowler by the economy rate, the average number of runs conceded per over, and economical praises a bowler, a spell or a set of figures that keeps it low. Its opposite is expensive: a bowler who leaks runs has had an expensive day, even if he took wickets along the way.
Less common meaning
- 4Relating to economy in senses other than saving, such as a nation's economy or the science of economics.
The report traced the economical development of the colony over fifty years.
Doctor in Economical Sciences.
2007, Who's Who in the Arab WorldSimilareconomic
Note
Built from economic plus -al, the word in this use means no more than economic does: economical science, a state's economical development, a history of economical theory. The use is dated, though it lingers in some formal and international writing. Today the money-saving meaning has the word almost to itself, so a writer who means the economy is safer with economic.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from economic + the suffix -al.