Word.ws English Dictionary

Engel's law

Engel's law proper noun: the relationship whereby, as family income increases, the percentage spent on food decreases, even though the total amount of food expenditure increases.

Proper noun

Engel's law

  1. The relationship whereby, as family income increases, the percentage spent on food decreases, even though the total amount of food expenditure increases.

Origin of Engel's law

Proposed by the statistician Ernst Engel in 1857.

Questions about Engel's law

What does Engel's law mean?
Engel's law means the relationship whereby, as family income increases, the percentage spent on food decreases, even though the total amount of food expenditure increases.
What part of speech is Engel's law?
Engel's law is a proper noun.

Words near Engel's law in the dictionary

  1. Engebretson
  2. Engebretsons
  3. Engel
  4. Engel curve
  5. Engel curves
  6. Engel's law
  7. engelang
  8. engelanger
  9. engelangers
  10. engelangs
  11. Engelbeorht

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Engel's law (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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