Meaning & use
relevancy
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Meaning
noununcountable
The quality of being closely connected to the subject being discussed or to what is needed.
Grammar: Uncountable, usually followed by to: the relevancy of the data to the question.
Patterns
- the relevancy of something to something
The lawyer questioned the relevancy of the witness's testimony.
Search engines try to improve the relevancy of their results.
Teachers worry about the relevancy of old textbooks to modern pupils.
Common combinations
- question the relevancy
- The editor began to question the relevancy of the article.
- relevancy of something
- We discussed the relevancy of the survey to our plan.
- search relevancy
- The team works on search relevancy for an online shop.
- lack of relevancy
- A lack of relevancy made the lecture dull.
Synonyms and how they differ
- relevance
- Relevance is the more common form and the safer choice in formal writing, while relevancy is rarer and sounds slightly technical.
- pertinence
- Pertinence is more formal and stresses that something bears directly on the point at hand.
- applicability
- Applicability focuses on whether a rule or idea can actually be used in a case.
Opposites
Word family
- relevant adjective
- connected to the matter at hand
- relevance noun
- the more usual noun
- irrelevant adjective
- not connected to the matter
- irrelevancy noun
- something that is beside the point
Commonly confused: relevancy or relevance?
relevancy vs relevance
The two mean the same, but relevance is far more common; use relevancy mainly when a text already uses it, as in some technical fields.
Practice
Which sentence uses relevancy correctly?
Choose one answer.
Relevancy is a noun meaning how closely something connects to the topic. The other options use it as an adjective, an adverb or with the wrong meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “relevancy”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.