inefficiency.

The use of more resources than needed, or the failure to achieve attainable results from the resources used, under a stated criterion.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• operational inefficiency
• source of inefficiency

On the page

Operational inefficiency increased when the same information had to be entered into three incompatible systems.

The report identified a source of inefficiency without claiming that every cost could be removed.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Singular inefficiency; plural inefficiencies. Also uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: economic explanation, resource analysis, incentive analysis, comparison. Disciplines: economics, business, social science. Commonness: moderately common.