economy
/ɪˈkɒnəmi
/- The slowing global economy has weakened demand for Japan's high-technology exports, causing manufacturers to cut production and workers.
- The global capitalist economy remains the most important transnational force in the world today.
- Economically, coffee production came to dominate as Colombian insertion into the world market economy depended on this export commodity.
Synonyms
- As always, it's a much neater and efficient system than a centralized economy.
- Overnight, it could become the delivery system of the digital economy.
- It was an arrangement that covered most people, but with Deng Xiaoping's move to a market economy, the system was doomed.
- As well as excellent fuel economy it also allows the company driver to avoid the three per cent benefit in kind diesel surcharge.
- In the auto-shift mode the system chooses the most logical gear for engine speed and fuel economy at any time.
- GM estimates that direct injection can improve gas engine fuel economy by 10 percent.
- That included a huge family cauliflower for 99p and a pack of four rather than two economy kitchen towels.
- Unlike most economy cars, four tall adults fit easily and comfortably into the Mazda3.
- There are also a number of different economy rooms.
- Skill, in any sport, is the ability of the player to execute a technique with economy of effort.
- Despite his miss, Sheringham was still one of the better players in claret and blue, achieved, as always, with great economy of effort.
- What marks out Benaud's commentary is not just his absolute economy of words, but his unerring eye for a story.
- Those travelling in the executive class will have to opt for any one of the three items being provided in the first class, while those travelling in the economy class will have an option of only two items.
- Although he only has an economy class ticket he planks himself down in First Class and, despite the efforts of the steward, refuses to move.
- Another year and she would move from flying economy class to business class.
Phrases
economy of scale
economy of scope
Origin
Late 15th century (in the sense 'management of material resources'): from French économie, or via Latin from Greek oikonomia 'household management', based on oikos 'house' + nemein 'manage'. Current senses date from the 17th century.
Like ecology, economy and economical come from Greek oikos ‘house’, and in the 15th century they were spelled oikonomy and oikonomical. Economy was then ‘the art or science of managing a household’ and ‘the way in which household finances are managed’. The sense expanded in the 17th century to cover the management of a country's finances. Being economical with the truth is a euphemism for lying or deliberately withholding information. Mark Twain commented in Following the Equator (1897), ‘Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.’ The phrase itself did not gain widespread popularity until its use in 1986 during a government attempt to prevent the publication of Spycatcher, a book by a former MI5 officer, Peter Wright. Giving evidence at the trial, the head of the British Civil Service reportedly said of a letter: ‘It contains a misleading impression, not a lie. It was economical with the truth.’