Word.ws English Dictionary

performant

Syllables: per·form·antUK/pəˈfɔːmənt/US/pɚˈfɔɹmənt/

performant adjective: of or relating to performance.

Adjective

performant (comparative more performant, superlative most performant)

  1. Of or relating to performance.
    • A ballet visibly stresses the performant function even though, traditionally, it also claims to communicate some meaning. In sports, the performant function dominates more openly; but, in a symbiotic relation, it derives much of its vitality from a grafted referential function that operates through...1990, Jean Alter, “Performant Function in Action”, in A Sociosemiotic Theory of Theatre, Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, pages 60–61
  2. Performing well; Capable of or characterized by a high or excellent level of performance or efficiency.
    • The inhabitants commonly use pacing Naggs, singularly performant in travaille, and easily kept in good case.c. 1680, “An Account of the Barony of Forth, in the County of Wexford, Written at the Close of the Seventeenth Century. Edited by Herbert F[rancis] Hore.”, in Proceedings and Papers of the Kilkenny...
    • Nevertheless, it should be realized that most of the trials were conducted with poorly performant neutron installations (similar to old 200 kV X-ray units).1991, P. Scalliet, “Installation of a Hospital-based Protontherapy Center in the Province of Antwerp, Belgium”, in P. Chauvel, A. Wambersie, P. Mandrillon, editors, Epac 90: 2nd European Particle...
    1. Characterized by a level of performance or efficiency that is adequate for or exceeds the expectations of end users.
      • The program ALGOLOG is highly performant: it generated 259 linear subproblems, instead of 2²³.1977, J[ohn] Rose, C[onstantin] Bilciu, editors, Modern Trends in Cybernetics and Systems: Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Cybernetics and Systems, Bucharest, Romania, August...
      • Recently, a pure view-based object recognition approach was proposed, that is surprisingly performant.2000, Luc Van Gool, Reinhard Koch, Theo Moons, “New Techniques for 3D Modeling … … and for Doing Without”, in Peter Corke, James Trevelyan, editors, Experimental Robotics VI: The Sixth International...

Noun

performant (plural performants)

  1. (obsolete, rare) Someone who performs something, such as a ritual; a performer.
    • As my heart bears me full witness with what unalloyed satisfaction I should have seen this last duty in your hands or in D. Giddy's, so I feel myself permitted to avow the pain, yea, the sense of shame, with which I contemplate Dr. Stock as the performant.1809 January 30, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “From His Leaving Clifton for London in 1801 to 1807, the Year of His Discovery of the Basis of the Fixed Alkalies. [Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
    • That there is considerable drollery and fun in the work, alike of the pencil and the pen in this morceau, it were idle to deny. That the performant [Henry Louis Stephens] wields both with not a little freedom, nimbleness and ease, is obvious on inspection.1854 October 14, “[Current Literature.] The Goblin Snob, Imagined and Illustrated. By Henry L. Stephens. Dewitt & Davenport: New York: 1854. Oblong 4to. Pp. 96. For sale in Philadelphia by T. B....

Examples of performant in a sentence

  • A ballet visibly stresses the performant function even though, traditionally, it also claims to communicate some meaning.1990, Jean Alter, “Performant Function in Action”, in A Sociosemiotic Theory of Theatre, Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania...
  • Results suggest that shear actuators can be more performant than extension ones for the control of bending operations.1999, M. A. Trindade, A. Benjeddou, R. Ohayon, “Shear and Extension Actuation Mechanisms for Structural Vibration Control”, in Nesbitt W....
  • In our energy-conscious society, materials and structures are required to be more performant, lightweight, and cheap.2009, Vladimir Dobrokhotov, “Mechanical Properties of Nanostructures”, in Yashwant Pathak, Deepak Thassu, editors, Drug Delivery...
  • There are strong arguments that some features of J2EE, such as entity beans, can never be as performant in many situations as some alternatives.2003, Rod Johnson, Expert One-on-One: J2EE Design and Development (Programmer to Programmer), Birmingham: Wrox Press, →ISBN, page 5:

Synonyms of performant

Forms of performant

Adjective
comparativemore performant
superlativemost performant
Noun
pluralperformants

Origin of performant

From perform + -ant (suffix forming agent nouns from verbs, and adjectives from verbs with the senses of ‘doing (the action of the verb’)), possibly modelled after informant.

Words formed from performant

Questions about performant

What does performant mean?
Performant means of or relating to performance.
How do you use performant in a sentence?
A ballet visibly stresses the performant function even though, traditionally, it also claims to communicate some meaning.
What part of speech is performant?
Performant can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce performant?
Performant is pronounced /pəˈfɔːmənt/ (UK).

Words near performant in the dictionary

  1. performance metrics
  2. performance poetry
  3. performance-driven
  4. performances
  5. performancewear
  6. performant
  7. performantly
  8. performants
  9. performation
  10. performatism
  11. performative

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: performant (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-performant.ogg.

Cite this entry: “performant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/performant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.