Definition
nounEffective management of a community or system, or especially its resources.
nounEffective management of a community or system, or especially its resources., The regular operation of nature in the generation, nutrition and preservation of animals or plants.
Sentence Examples
The fiscal austerity may lead to an overkill of the economy.
A strong yen is shaking the economy.
Experts are forecasting a recovery in the economy.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English yconomye, yconomy, borrowed via Old French [Term?] or Medieval Latin from Latin oeconomia, from Ancient Greek οἰκονομία (oikonomía, “management of a household, administration”), from οἶκος (oîkos, “house”) + νέμω (némō, “distribute, allocate”). By surface analysis, eco- + -nomy. The first recorded sense of the word economy, found in a work possibly composed in 1440, is “the management of economic affairs”, in this case, of a monastery.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The place pleased them so much that they spent all their spare time there, scratching and cutting their names on the top of every tower; and at last, having exhausted all other places, finished up with inscribing H.EAST, T.BROWN, on the minute-hand of the great clock; in the doing of which they held the minute-hand, and disturbed the clock's economy."
— 1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days:
"Every possible economy was carefully investigated and unnecessary expense, however small, eliminated. The company had no money to spare on "frills.""
— 1956 September, 'Precursor', “The Dursley & Midland Junction Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 599:
"An economy open to free movement of capital can keep a fixed exchange rate, for example, only by subjugating monetary-policy goals to its defence—by raising interest rates sharply, say, when capital outflows put downward pressure on the currency. Yet the trilemma also implies that an economy can enjoy both free capital flows and an independent monetary policy, so long as it gives up worrying about its exchange rate. […] As advanced economies opened their monetary spigots to boost ailing economies, emerging-market complaints grew louder."
— 2013 August 31, “Horns of a trilemma”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8851, archived from the original on 12 Mar 2023: