Meaning & use
duplicate efforts
Last updated
Meaning
phrasefixed phrasebusiness
To do the same work that someone else is already doing, so that time and resources are wasted.
Grammar: The verb changes: they duplicate efforts, she duplicated our efforts.
Patterns
- duplicate efforts with someone
- avoid duplicating efforts
The two departments duplicated efforts and built the same tool.
To avoid duplicate efforts, please check the shared folder before starting.
Charities that duplicate efforts waste donations.
Word forms
| third person singular | duplicates efforts |
|---|---|
| past tense | duplicated efforts |
| -ing form | duplicating efforts |
Common combinations
- avoid duplicating efforts
- We held a meeting to avoid duplicating efforts.
- unnecessarily duplicate efforts
- The teams unnecessarily duplicated efforts for months.
- prevent duplicate efforts
- A shared calendar can prevent duplicate efforts.
- duplicate efforts across departments
- The company duplicated efforts across departments.
Synonyms and how they differ
- overlap
- Overlap suggests partial repetition, whereas duplicate efforts suggests doing almost the same job twice.
- repeat work
- Repeat work is plainer and can describe redoing your own task, while duplicate efforts usually involves different people or groups.
- reinvent the wheel
- Reinventing the wheel is an informal idiom about building something that already exists, with a more critical tone.
Opposites
Word family
- duplicate verb
- to make or do an exact copy
- duplication noun
- the act of repeating or copying
- duplicate noun
- an exact copy
- duplicative adjective
- repeating something already done
Commonly confused: duplicate efforts or duplicitous?
duplicate efforts vs duplicitous
Duplicitous means deceitful and dishonest; it does not mean repeated.
Practice
The agencies ___ efforts, because each one was building its own database of the same records.
Choose one answer.
Duplicated efforts means doing the same work twice; coordinated and shared would mean they avoided the problem.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “duplicate efforts”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.