Meaning & use
duplicative efforts
Last updated
Meaning
phrasefixed phrasebusiness
Work done by more than one person or group that repeats the same task and wastes resources.
Grammar: A noun phrase, often plural: the duplicative efforts were costly.
Patterns
- eliminate duplicative efforts
- duplicative efforts between groups
The audit found duplicative efforts between the two ministries.
Merging the teams removed duplicative efforts and saved money.
Duplicative efforts in grant applications slowed the research.
Common combinations
- eliminate duplicative efforts
- The merger aims to eliminate duplicative efforts.
- reduce duplicative efforts
- A single portal helps reduce duplicative efforts.
- costly duplicative efforts
- Costly duplicative efforts drained the budget.
- avoid duplicative efforts
- Agencies should avoid duplicative efforts in disaster relief.
Synonyms and how they differ
- redundant work
- Redundant work stresses that the effort is unnecessary, while duplicative efforts stresses that it is a copy of work already done.
- overlapping efforts
- Overlapping efforts suggests only partial repetition, whereas duplicative efforts suggests near-total repetition.
- repeated work
- Repeated work is plainer and can be done by one person, while duplicative efforts usually involves several parties.
Opposites
Word family
- duplicate verb
- to repeat or copy
- duplication noun
- unnecessary repetition
- duplicative adjective
- involving unneeded repetition
- duplicate adjective
- identical to another item
Commonly confused: duplicative efforts or duplicitous?
duplicative efforts vs duplicitous
Duplicitous means deliberately deceptive, so it is unrelated to repeated work.
Practice
The review recommended merging the offices to remove ___ efforts.
Choose one answer.
Duplicative efforts are repeated tasks that waste resources; collaborative and productive efforts are good things you would not remove.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “duplicative efforts”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.