inefficient
/ˌɪn.ɪˈfɪʃ.ənt/
inefficient adjective: not efficient; not producing the effect intended or desired; inefficacious.
Adjective
inefficient (comparative more inefficient, superlative most inefficient)
- Not efficient; not producing the effect intended or desired; inefficacious.
- Celery is an inefficient food.
- Incapable of, or indisposed to, effective action; habitually slack or unproductive; effecting little or nothing.
- inefficient workers
- an inefficient administrator
Noun
inefficient (plural inefficients)
- A person who cannot or does not work efficiently.
- Two men were put to work who could not set their looms; a third man was taken on who helped the inefficients to set the looms. The other weavers thought this was a breach of their union rules and 18 of them struck […]1889, New York (State). Dept. of Labor. Bureau of Statistics, Annual Report (part 2, page 127)
- A general shaking up of the workers from top to bottom would result; and when equilibrium had been restored, the number of the inefficients at the bottom of the Abyss would have been increased by hundreds of thousands.1903, Jack London, The People of the Abyss, Chapter 17
inefficient meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
inefficient in Hindi
- अक्षम, अकार्यक्षम
inefficient in Tamil
- திறமையற்ற, திறனற்ற
inefficient in Marathi
- अकार्यक्षम
inefficient in Urdu
- بیکار, بےنتیجہ, بےسود, کاہل, نالائق, نکما
More languagesFewer languages
- inefficient in Bengali
- অকার্যকর okarjokor, অকর্মিষ্ঠ ôkôrmiśṭhô
- inefficient in Telugu
- సమర్థత లేనిది
- inefficient in Malayalam
- കാര്യക്ഷമതയില്ലാത്ത, പ്രാപ്തിയില്ലാത്ത, കഴിവില്ലാത്ത, അക്ഷുണ്ണ
- inefficient in Kannada
- ಅಸಮರ್ಥ, ಅನರ್ಹ, ಯೋಗ್ಯತೆಯಿಲ್ಲದ, ದಕ್ಷತೆಯಿಲ್ಲದ
- inefficient in Gujarati
- બિનકાર્યક્ષમ
- inefficient in Odia
- ଅକର୍ମଣ୍ଯ଼, ଅଦକ୍ଷ, ଅକାର୍ଯ୍ଯ଼
- inefficient in Sanskrit
- अकर्मन् akarmán
- inefficient in Nepali
- अकार्यक्षम, अप्रभावी
Examples of inefficient in a sentence
- The airports are slow now because the pre-boarding screening is so inefficient.
- The bottleneck in this computer program is the inefficient sorting process; we should replace it with a faster one.
- Socialism is high-cost, uninnovative, and inefficient, whereas production by private firms tends to be innovative and efficient.
Antonyms of inefficient
Forms of inefficient
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more inefficient |
| superlative | most inefficient |
| Noun | |
| plural | inefficients |
Origin of inefficient
From in- + efficient.
Words formed from inefficient
Words that rhyme with inefficient
- efficient
- sufficient
- coefficient
- deficient
- hyperdeficient
- insufficient
- omniscient
- perficient
- self-sufficient
- allicient
- beneficient
- bideficient
40 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- biodeficient
- calorifacient
- calorificient
- cogniscient
- cost-efficient
- ecoefficient
- eigencoefficient
- equiefficient
- haplodeficient
- haploinsufficient
- haploproficient
- haplosufficient
- hyperefficient
- immunodeficient
- immunoinsufficient
- immunosufficient
- indeficient
- lymphosufficient
- maleficient
- multideficient
- multiscient
- nondeficient
- nonefficient
- nonomniscient
- nonproficient
- nonsufficient
- objicient
- Pareto-efficient
- phosphodeficient
- piezocoefficient
- proficient
- projicient
- pseudodeficient
- subefficient
- superefficient
- superproficient
- ultraefficient
- undeficient
- unproficient
- unsufficient
Questions about inefficient
- What does inefficient mean?
- Inefficient means not efficient; not producing the effect intended or desired; inefficacious.
- What is inefficient in Hindi?
- Inefficient in Hindi is अक्षम, अकार्यक्षम. See Inefficient meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is inefficient?
- Inefficient can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce inefficient?
- Inefficient is pronounced /ˌɪn.ɪˈfɪʃ.ənt/.
Words near inefficient in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: inefficient (page history and authors); inefficient (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); inefficient (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); inefficient (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); inefficient (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); অকর্মিষ্ঠ (Bengali) (page history and authors); inefficient (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); inefficient (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); inefficient (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); inefficient (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); inefficient (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); अकर्मन् (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); inefficient (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-inefficient.wav.
Cite this entry: “inefficient.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/inefficient. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.