Meaning & use
energy
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
The natural drive and stamina that lets a person be active, alert, and enthusiastic about doing things.
Grammar: Not used with a plural in this sense: she has a lot of energy, not many energies.
Patterns
- energy for something
- have the energy to do something
- put energy into something
By Friday afternoon I had no energy left to cook, so we ordered food.
The new coach brought so much energy to the team that practices became fun again.
Toddlers seem to have endless energy, even after a full day at the park.
noununcountablephysicstechnical
In physics, the property that allows a system to do work or produce heat, light, or motion, and which can change form but is never lost.
Grammar: Used as a mass noun in science: kinetic energy, stored energy.
Patterns
- energy from something
- convert energy into something
A falling rock turns stored energy into energy of movement.
Plants capture energy from sunlight and store it in sugars.
The experiment measured how much energy the battery released as heat.
noununcountable
Power obtained from fuel, electricity, wind, sunlight, or similar sources and used to run homes, vehicles, and industry.
Grammar: Often appears before another noun: energy bills, energy policy.
Patterns
- energy from something
- an energy source
Our town gets most of its energy from wind farms.
Heating the old house uses a huge amount of energy in winter.
The government promised cheaper energy for low-income families.
Word forms
| plural | energies |
|---|
Common combinations
- renewable energy
- The school installed solar panels to rely more on renewable energy.
- boundless energy
- My nephew has boundless energy and never sits still.
- save energy
- Turning off unused lights is a simple way to save energy.
- energy levels
- My energy levels drop sharply after lunch.
- kinetic energy
- A speeding bicycle carries more kinetic energy than a slow one.
- energy efficient
- They bought an energy efficient fridge to cut their bills.
Synonyms and how they differ
- vigor
- Vigor is more formal and suggests healthy strength as well as liveliness, while energy is a plainer everyday word.
- stamina
- Stamina means the ability to keep going for a long time, whereas energy can describe a short burst of liveliness too.
- vitality
- Vitality stresses an overall lively, healthy quality of a person or thing, not just the amount of effort available.
- power
- Power usually refers to the rate or ability to do work or supply electricity, and does not describe a person's enthusiasm.
Opposites
Word family
- energetic adjective
- full of energy and active
- energetically adverb
- in a lively, forceful way
- energize verb
- give someone or something energy
- energizing adjective
- making you feel lively
- energy-saving adjective
- designed to use less power
Commonly confused: energy or energy vs. force?
energy vs energy vs. force
Force is a push or pull that changes an object's motion, while energy is the capacity to do work; the two are measured in different units.
Practice
Which sentence uses energy in its scientific sense?
Choose one answer.
Only the wind turbine sentence refers to energy as a physical quantity that changes form; the others describe a person's liveliness.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “energy”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.