EFFICIENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does efficient mean? 

• EFFICIENT (adjective)
  The adjective EFFICIENT has 2 senses:

1. being effective without wasting time or effort or expense

2. able to accomplish a purpose; functioning effectively

  Familiarity information: EFFICIENT used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EFFICIENT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Being effective without wasting time or effort or expense

Context example:

efficient engines save gas

Similar:

businesslike (exhibiting methodical and systematic characteristics that would be useful in business)

cost-effective; cost-efficient (productive relative to the cost)

economic; economical (using the minimum of time or resources necessary for effectiveness)

expeditious (marked by speed and efficiency)

high-octane (used of gasoline; having a high octane number)

streamlined (made efficient by stripping off nonessentials)

Also:

competent (properly or sufficiently qualified or capable or efficient)

effective; effectual; efficacious (producing or capable of producing an intended result or having a striking effect)

Antonym:

inefficient (not producing desired results; wasteful)

Derivation:

efficiency (skillfulness in avoiding wasted time and effort)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Able to accomplish a purpose; functioning effectively

Synonyms:

effective; efficient

Context example:

the efficient cause of the revolution

Similar:

competent (properly or sufficiently qualified or capable or efficient)

 Context examples 

Goal: refine current models, create models that more closely parallel human cancers, devise efficient procedures that will make models available to all researchers who need them.

(Extraordinary Opportunity: Preclinical Models of Cancer, NCI Thesaurus)

Renewable, plant-based materials such as bamboo have huge potential for sustainable and energy-efficient buildings.

(Visualising heat flow in bamboo could help design more energy-efficient and fire-safe buildings, University of Cambridge)

IRESs can fold into a stable secondary hairpin structure to be incompatible with efficient translation by ribosomal scanning.

(Internal Ribosome Entry Site, NCI Thesaurus)

This makes them easier to extract for your solar cell, and it’s more efficient to produce light from these hotspots in an LED.

(‘Messy’ production of perovskite material increases solar cell efficiency, University of Cambridge)

This feature promotes efficient nuclear import and viral replication in non-dividing cells.

(Central DNA Flap Sequence, NCI Thesaurus)

A white colored rabbit characterized by efficient superovulation and spontaneous formation of lymphoma.

(Japanese White Rabbit, NCI Thesaurus)

Cigarette is a very efficient drug-delivery inhaler system for fast-acting substances.

(Cigarette Dosage Form, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

Researchers have successfully used sound waves to control quantum information in a single electron, a significant step towards efficient, robust quantum computers made from semiconductors.

(Quantum state of single electrons controlled by ‘surfing’ on sound waves, University of Cambridge)

This allele, which encodes T-cell surface glycoprotein CD8 beta chain protein, is involved in the efficient mediation of cell-cell interactions within the immune system.

(CD8B wt Allele, NCI Thesaurus)

Spintronics could therefore give us faster, energy-efficient computers, capable of performing more complex operations than at present.

(Certain organic semiconducting materials can transport spin faster than they conduct charge, University of Cambridge)