different between efficient vs efficacious
efficient
English
Etymology
1398, “making,” from Old French, from Latin efficientem, nominative effici?ns, participle of efficere (“work out, accomplish”) (see effect). Meaning “productive, skilled” is from 1787. Efficiency apartment is first recorded 1930, American English.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /??f???nt/
- (US, Canada) IPA(key): /??f???nt/
- Rhymes: -???nt
Adjective
efficient (comparative more efficient, superlative most efficient)
- 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)
- It was well said of Plotinus, that the stars were significant, but not efficient.
- (proscribed, old use) effective
- 1801, Robert Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer:
- 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!
- Ye wake no more to anguish;? ye have borne
- 1856, William Dexter Wilson, An Elementary Treatise on Logic
- The Efficient Cause is that from which emanates the force that produces the Effect
- 1801, Robert Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer:
Usage notes
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary from 1913 still lists efficient and effective as synonyms, but all major dictionaries now show that these words now only have different meanings in careful use. Use of both for the other meaning is however widespread enough that Longman's Exam Dictionary, for example, finds it necessary to proscribe the use of one for the other with several examples at each entry and provides the following summary:
- efficient (“working quickly and without waste”)
- effective (“having the desired effect”)
Antonyms
- inefficient
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
Noun
efficient (plural efficients)
- (obsolete) a cause; something that causes an effect
- 1643, Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, I.14:
- Some are without efficient, as God; others without matter, as Angels […].
- a. 1758, Jonathan Edwards, Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity
- This implies, that something happens without a cause. If it should be said, that motive in this case is not the efficient of the action or doing — this is granted; but at the same time, for reasons already given, it is denied, that the man himself is the efficient cause of it.
- 1643, Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, I.14:
References
Danish
Adjective
efficient
- This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text
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Inflection
Further reading
- “efficient” in Den Danske Ordbog
French
Etymology
From Latin effici?ns.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /e.fi.sj??/
- Homophone: efficients
Adjective
efficient (feminine singular efficiente, masculine plural efficients, feminine plural efficientes)
- efficient
- effective
Related terms
- efficience
Further reading
- “efficient” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Latin
Pronunciation
- (Classical) IPA(key): /ef?fi.ki.ent/, [?f?f?ki?n?t?]
- (Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ef?fi.t??i.ent/, [?f?fi?t??i?n?t?]
Verb
efficient
- third-person plural future active indicative of effici?
efficient From the web:
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efficacious
English
Etymology
From Old French efficacieux, from Latin effic?x (“efficacious”) +? -ous, from efficere (“to effect, to accomplish”); see effect.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /?f.?.?ke?.??s/
- Rhymes: -e???s
Adjective
efficacious (comparative more efficacious, superlative most efficacious)
- (formal) Effective; possessing efficacy. [from 1520s]
- Synonym: effective
- Antonym: inefficacious
Related terms
Translations
Further reading
- efficacious in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- efficacious in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
- “efficacious”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
efficacious From the web:
- what efficacious means
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