Meaning & use
high efficiency
Last updated
Meanings
phraseuncountable
The quality of working well with little waste of energy, time, or materials.
Grammar: Used as a noun phrase: something achieves or improves high efficiency.
Patterns
- achieve high efficiency
- improve high efficiency
- high efficiency in something
The new engine achieves high efficiency at low speeds.
We need high efficiency in our use of water.
The factory improved its high efficiency by updating machines.
adjectivebefore a nountechnical
Working well without wasting energy or materials.
Grammar: Used before a noun, often with a hyphen: high-efficiency boiler.
Patterns
- high-efficiency machine
- high-efficiency system
They installed a high-efficiency heating system.
High-efficiency cars use less fuel.
Common combinations
- achieve high efficiency
- The team achieved high efficiency in production.
- high-efficiency equipment
- The lab bought high-efficiency equipment.
- energy efficiency
- Energy efficiency saves money.
- improve efficiency
- We must improve efficiency to cut costs.
Synonyms and how they differ
- productivity
- Productivity measures how much work is done; high efficiency focuses on doing it with little waste.
- effectiveness
- Effectiveness is about producing the desired result; high efficiency is about doing so without waste.
Opposites
Word family
- efficient adjective
- Working well without waste.
- efficiently adverb
- In a way that avoids waste.
Commonly confused: high efficiency or effectiveness?
high efficiency vs effectiveness
Effectiveness means achieving the result; efficiency means achieving it without waste.
Practice
The company aims to achieve high ______ in its factories.
Choose one answer.
The noun efficiency is needed after high; efficient is an adjective, efficiently is an adverb, and efficiencies is plural and would need a different context.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “high efficiency”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.