# efficient

Pronunciation: say "i-FISH-uhnt" /ɪˈfɪʃənt/

## Adjective

1. Making good and careful use of time, energy, or resources without consuming any extra.
   - Simple: Working well without wasting time, energy, or other resources.
   - _The factory adopted more efficient methods to cut energy use._
   - _An efficient team finishes the project with very little wasted effort._
2. Expressing the share of consumed energy that does useful work; the ratio of useful output to total energy input.
   - Simple: Using a large share of the energy put in, with very little wasted.
   - _The engine converts fuel to motion at an efficient rate, wasting little as heat._
   - _Newer turbines are far more efficient than models from a decade ago._
3. Causing effects or bringing something into being; producing a result, now rare outside the philosophical and legal phrase efficient cause.
   - Simple: Causing something to happen or making it come into being.
   - _In Aristotle's framework, the sculptor is the efficient cause of the finished statue._
   - _The court identified the faulty wiring as the efficient cause of the fire._
4. Producing the intended effect; effective or efficacious. *(nonstandard)*
   - Simple: Able to produce the result that is wanted.
   - _The physician prescribed a remedy he deemed efficient against the fever._
   - _They sought an efficient cure for the ailing crops._

## Noun

5. A cause: something that brings about an effect. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A thing or person that makes something else happen.
   - _Philosophers of the age regarded God as the first efficient of all things._
   - _He named the sun the efficient of the season's warmth._

## Origin

First recorded in 1398 with the meaning "making," this word came through Old French from Latin efficientem, the participle of efficere ("work out, accomplish"). The sense "productive, skilled" dates from 1787.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/efficient (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).