Word.ws English Dictionary

second-system effect

second-system effect noun: the tendency of small, elegant, and successful systems to be succeeded by overengineered, bloated systems, due to inflated expectations and overconfidence.

Noun

second-system effect (plural second-system effects)

  1. The tendency of small, elegant, and successful systems to be succeeded by overengineered, bloated systems, due to inflated expectations and overconfidence.

Synonyms of second-system effect

Forms of second-system effect

pluralsecond-system effects

Origin of second-system effect

Introduced by Fred Brooks in his book The Mythical Man-Month (1975).

Questions about second-system effect

What does second-system effect mean?
Second-system effect means the tendency of small, elegant, and successful systems to be succeeded by overengineered, bloated systems, due to inflated expectations and overconfidence.
What part of speech is second-system effect?
Second-system effect is a noun.
What is the plural of second-system effect?
The plural of second-system effect is second-system effects.

Words near second-system effect in the dictionary

  1. second-story man
  2. second-story men
  3. second-string
  4. second-stringer
  5. second-stringers
  6. second-system effect
  7. second-system effects
  8. second-system syndrome
  9. second-system syndromes
  10. second-teamer
  11. second-teamers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: second-system effect (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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Cite this entry: “second-system effect.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/second-system_effect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.