Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Not efficient, as.
- adjective Lacking the ability or skill to perform effectively; incompetent.
- adjective Not producing the intended result; ineffective.
- adjective Wasteful of time, energy, or materials.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Not efficient; not producing or not capable of producing the desired effect; incapable; incompetent; inadequate: as, inefficient measures; an inefficient police.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Not efficient; not producing the effect intended or desired, or achieiving the effect by unnnecessary and excessive expenditure of resources; inefficacious.
- adjective Incapable of, or indisposed to, effective action; habitually slack or remiss; effecting little or nothing
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Not
efficient ; not producing theeffect intended or desired;inefficacious ; as, inefficient means or measures. - adjective
Incapable of, orindisposed to,effective action ; habituallyslack orremiss ;effecting little or nothing; as, inefficient workers; an inefficient administrator.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective lacking the ability or skill to perform effectively; inadequate
- adjective not producing desired results; wasteful
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Cameron attacked Labour's record, blaming Brown for what he described as inefficient and chaotic public services.
MercoPress 2010
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SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, on Monday, former US president Bill Clinton fired back and railed against what he called inefficient spending of AIDS funds and said many countries are misspending foreign aid.
Democracy Now! 2010
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Amiridis and other school officials, wary of potential opposition from political leaders who have already criticized colleges and universities for what they describe as inefficient and duplicative growth, stress that the Greenville medical program will not be a "new" medical school.
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SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, on Monday, former US president Bill Clinton fired back and railed against what he called inefficient spending of AIDS funds and said many countries are misspending foreign aid.
Democracy Now! 2010
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SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, on Monday, former US president Bill Clinton fired back and railed against what he called inefficient spending of AIDS funds and said many countries are misspending foreign aid.
Democracy Now! 2010
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SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, on Monday, former US president Bill Clinton fired back and railed against what he called inefficient spending of AIDS funds and said many countries are misspending foreign aid.
Pacific Free Press - Hard Truths for Hard Times - Progressive opinion, dissident news 2010
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Cameron attacked Labour's record, blaming Brown for what he described as inefficient and chaotic public services.
Stuff.co.nz - Stuff 2010
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A report released in June slammed failures in Australia's quarantine systems which it described as inefficient, underfunded and lacking diligence.
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A report released in June slammed failures in Australia's quarantine systems, which it described as inefficient, underfunded and lacking diligence.
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This is, at its very essence, not fair to those who are involved in 'inefficient' industries.
That Broon meme Stephen Tall 2007
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