Meaning & use
synergy
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Meanings
noununcountablebusiness
The extra benefit that comes when people, groups or things work together and achieve more than they could separately.
Grammar: Often followed by between or of: synergy between the two teams.
Patterns
- synergy between something and something
- create synergy
The two departments found real synergy after the merger.
There is strong synergy between the singer and the guitarist.
Good teachers create synergy in the classroom.
nouncountable or uncountabletechnicalmedical
In science, the way two substances or processes together produce a greater effect than the sum of their separate effects.
Grammar: Used in medicine and chemistry: drug synergy.
Patterns
- synergy between something and something
Researchers observed a synergy between the two drugs.
The synergy of the nutrients boosted plant growth.
Word forms
| plural | synergies |
|---|
Common combinations
- create synergy
- The partnership aims to create synergy between the firms.
- synergy between
- There is clear synergy between design and engineering.
- cost synergies
- The deal promised large cost synergies.
- natural synergy
- The two writers had a natural synergy.
- achieve synergy
- It takes trust to achieve synergy in a team.
Synonyms and how they differ
- cooperation
- Cooperation just means working together, while synergy implies the result is greater than separate efforts.
- teamwork
- Teamwork focuses on the process of working as a team, but synergy focuses on the added benefit.
- combined effect
- Combined effect is a plain phrase for what synergy means, and it can sound clearer to general readers.
- collaboration
- Collaboration describes working jointly on something, not the extra payoff that synergy names.
Opposites
Word family
- synergistic adjective
- producing a combined effect greater than the parts
- synergize verb
- to work together to produce a greater effect
- synergetic adjective
- a variant of synergistic
- synergist noun
- something that boosts another's effect
Commonly confused: synergy or energy?
synergy vs energy
Energy is the power to do work or be active, while synergy is the extra effect from combined efforts, and the words only look alike.
Practice
The merged companies hoped the combined research teams would produce ___, achieving more together than apart.
Choose one answer.
Synergy means the greater result from working together. Rivalry and inertia describe competition or lack of movement, which would not give extra benefit.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “synergy”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.