Word.ws English Dictionary

maximax

maximax noun: a strategy or algorithm that seeks to maximize the maximum possible result (that is, that prefers the alternative with the chance of the best possible outcome, even if its expected outcome and its worst possible outcome are worse than other alternatives); often used attributively, as "maximax strategy", "maximax approach", and so on.

Noun

maximax (uncountable)

  1. (decision theory) A strategy or algorithm that seeks to maximize the maximum possible result (that is, that prefers the alternative with the chance of the best possible outcome, even if its expected outcome and its worst possible outcome are worse than other alternatives); often used attributively, as "maximax strategy", "maximax approach", and so on.
    • The first criterion is the Hurwicz criterion, often referred to the maximax criterion. […] the decision-maker is always optimistic and attempts to maximize profits by a go-for-broke strategy.2009, Harold Kerzner, Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling, Tenth Edition, John Wiley and Sons, →ISBN, page 749

Origin of maximax

From maxi(mum), maxi(mize) + max(imum).

Questions about maximax

What does maximax mean?
Maximax means a strategy or algorithm that seeks to maximize the maximum possible result (that is, that prefers the alternative with the chance of the best possible outcome, even if its expected outcome and its worst possible outcome are worse than other alternatives); often used attributively, as "maximax strategy", "maximax approach", and so on.
What part of speech is maximax?
Maximax is a noun.

Words near maximax in the dictionary

  1. maximaphily
  2. maximas
  3. maximative
  4. maximatives
  5. Maximato
  6. maximax
  7. maximed
  8. Maximi
  9. Maximilian
  10. Maximilian sunflower
  11. Maximilian sunflowers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: maximax (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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