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Efficient   /ɪfˈɪʃənt/   Listen
Efficient

adjective
1.
Being effective without wasting time or effort or expense.  "Efficient engines save gas"
2.
Able to accomplish a purpose; functioning effectively.  Synonym: effective.  "Effective personnel" , "An efficient secretary" , "The efficient cause of the revolution"



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"Efficient" Quotes from Famous Books



... is entrusted to the minister of the capital, a member of the cabinet. Under this minister are the police, sanitary, harbour master's and revenue offices. The police force is an efficient and well-organized body of 3000 men headed by a European commissioner of police. The sanitary department consists of a board of health, a bacteriological laboratory and an engineer's office, all managed with expert ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... up till he came home in order to learn the event of the negociation. She considered herself as the efficient cause of the quarrel, yet scarce knew how or in what to blame herself; the behaviour of Sir Robert had always been offensive to her; she disliked his manners, and detested his boldness; and she had already shewn her intention to accept the assistance of Mr Belfield before he had followed her ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... the Board of Supervisors are due, and are hereby tendered, to Colonel William T. Sherman for the able and efficient manner in which he has conducted the affairs of the seminary during the time the institution has been under his control—a period attended with unusual difficulties, requiring on the part of the superintendent ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... literary atmosphere is impossible. From these, or from whatever causes, it happened that the old Harvard scholarship had an elegant and tasteful side to it, so that the dry erudition of the schools blossomed into a generous culture, and there were men in the professors' chairs who were no less efficient as teachers because they were also poets, orators, wits and men of the world. In the seventeen years from 1821 to 1839 there were graduated from Harvard College Emerson, Holmes, Sumner, Phillips, Motley, Thoreau, Lowell, and Edward Everett ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... Another and more efficient mode of applying this test, is, to pass a current of sulphuretted hydrogen gas through the suspected water in the ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum

... be too gross to discharge the main functions of a useful religion. So long as the understanding could submit to the fables of the Pagan creed, so long it was possible that the hopes and fears built upon that creed might be practically efficient on men's lives and intentions. But when the foundation gave way, the whole superstructure of necessity fell to the ground. Those who were obliged to reject the ridiculous legends which invested the whole of ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... two cassettes allows a much more efficient and convenient manner of updating data stored on tape. For example, if you have payroll data stored on tape, the information can be read, one item at a time, from Cassette Recorder number 1, then changed or added to and written out on Cassette Recorder number 2. The example cited is a very ...
— Radio Shack TRS-80 Expansion Interface: Operator's Manual - Catalog Numbers: 26-1140, 26-1141, 26-1142 • Anonymous

... circumstances. And it means that the effect of different methods of treatment, old or new, for different kinds of men and of causes, must be studied, experimented, and compared. Only in this way can accurate knowledge be reached, and new efficient measures be adopted. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... only to shut your eyes to imagine yourself in some lowland kirk on a hot Sabbath morning. He had been a distinguished advocate before he left the law for politics, and had swayed juries of his countrymen at his will. The man was extraordinarily efficient on a platform. There were unplumbed depths of emotion in his eye, a juicy sentiment in his voice, an overpowering tenderness in his manner, which gave to politics the glamour of a revival meeting. He wallowed in obvious pathos, and his hearers, often unwillingly, wallowed with ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... mid-winter in the heart of South Germany. There was a man behind me looking for my blood, and soon there would be a hue-and-cry for me up and down the land. I had heard that the German police were pretty efficient, and I couldn't see that I stood the slimmest chance. If they caught me they would shoot me beyond doubt. I asked myself on what charge, and answered, 'For knocking about a German officer.' They couldn't have me up for ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... household labor, or those means of saving it which come by daily practice; and then, after marriage, when physically weakened by maternity, embarrassed by the care of young children, they are often suddenly deserted by every efficient servant, and the whole machinery of a complicated household left in their weak, inexperienced hands. In the country, you see a household perhaps made void some fine morning by Biddy's sudden departure, and nobody ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the words "My Lords, and Gentlemen of the House of Commons." It was a very quiet speech, somewhat slowly and heavily delivered, with "peace" for the key-word. He represented the nation as now in such a nourishing state, especially in the possession of a settled and efficient Public Ministry of the Gospel, and at the same time of ample religious liberty for all, that nothing more was needed than oblivion of past differences, and a hearty co-operation of the two Houses with each other, and with himself. Apologizing for being ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... full of a noble determination to persevere in her project. Though full of fear, she never for a moment thought of retreat from the decision which she had made. Her character afforded an admirable model for the not unfrequent union that we find in woman, of shrinking delicacy with manly and efficient firmness. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... necessity that seized the British sailor and made of him what he in time became, the most abject creature and the most efficient fighting unit the world has ever produced, lay in the fact that he ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... general assessment: relatively efficient system based on island-wide microwave radio relay network domestic: fixed telephone line density is about 10 per 100 persons; multiple providers of mobile cellular service with a subscribership of roughly 60 per 100 persons international: country code - 1-809; ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... at Staithes, near Whitby, the boy eventually ran away to sea. In 1755, volunteering for the Royal Navy, he sailed to North America in the Eagle; then, promoted to be master of the Mercury, he did efficient service in surveying the St. Lawrence in co-operation with General Wolfe. His first voyage of discovery was in the Endeavour with a party to observe the transit of Venus in 1768, and after three years he returned, to start again, on his second voyage, in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... carried into a big base hospital. It was an American hospital, and it sure seemed like heaven after what we had been through. They soon fixed up my leg, and then I had nothing to do but watch the nurses. They were the most efficient doctors and nurses I ever saw; everything in the hospital moved like clockwork. After a few days they set my leg and put it in splints and then I waited for my ticket to Blighty; but my troubles were not quite over. One day the German aeroplanes came over, and next night they came again ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien

... is that, if a mistress takes an interest in cooking, she will generally have a fairly efficient cook," said Mrs. Fothergill. "I agree with Mrs. Sinclair that our English cooks are spoilt by neglect; and I think it is hard upon them, as a class, that so many inefficient women should be able to pose as cooks while they are unable ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... their election, and had no inducement to maintain a high standard of integrity. Sismondi also dates from this epoch the withdrawal of the Florentines from military service.[6] Nor, as the sequel shows, was the measure efficient as a check upon the personal ambition of encroaching party leaders. The Squittino and the Borse became instruments in the hands of the Medici for the consolidation of their tyranny.[7] By the end of the fourteenth century (about 1378)the Florentines ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... speak of it still with longing and regret. It is claimed, and from the names and qualities of the men, not without justice, that no school for the higher education of the black man has furnished a finer curriculum or possessed a better equipped or more efficient faculty. Among these, Richard T. Greener was a bright, ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... among us a very worthy and efficient member, long since lost to his friends and the world at large, Adam Drummond, of amiable memory, who was gifted by nature with the most sonorous, and, at the same time, the most contagious laugh that ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... "you don't want to run into the mistake of thinking that life on a national forest is principally a picturesque performance. It's a business that the government is running for the benefit of the country at large. Anything that can be done to make it efficient is tremendously important. The telephone already has saved many a fearful night ride through bad places of the forest, has been the means of stopping many a fire, and has saved many a life in consequence. I think that's a little more important than ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... having for its vague or indefinite object ideal or general, abstract, impersonal, or, so to speak, invisible intangible subjects, wanting all the vivacious pungent stimulus that belongs to real individual absurdity, and the direct ridicule of it, judiciously and dexterously applied; the only efficient—I had almost said legitimate—object of a rational creature's amusement. If Dorothy depends upon you for her entertainment (otherwise than as you involuntarily, unconsciously, naturally, and simply furnish it to me), ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... masses. The autonomy granted to the provinces needs more control than the civil government originally intended, and ends in an appeal on almost every conceivable question being made to one man—the Gov.-General: this excessive concentration makes efficient administration too dependent on the abilities of one person. There are many who still think, and not without reason, that ten years of military rule would have been better for the people themselves. Even now military government might be advantageously re-established in Samar ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... increase the haunting power, for if a ghost may send a foot or an arm or a leg to harry one person, he can dispatch his back-bone or his liver or his heart to upset other human beings simultaneously in a sectional haunting at once economically efficient and terrifying. ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... know that the evening of Dickens's first reading in New York was bright with moonlight veiled in a soft gray snow-cloud. The crowd at the entrance was not large. The speculators in tickets were not troublesome, because all the tickets had been long sold. The police, as usual, were polite and efficient; and going up the steep staircase, and passing through the single door, we were all quietly and pleasantly seated by eight o'clock. The floor of Steinway Hall is level, so that the audience is lost to itself; but it was easy for all of us to perceive, by scanning our neighbors, that we ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... in the way of being frankly feminine, Geraldine might go to school to her. Geraldine had brains and did not hide them; Geraldine used the weapon of seriousness. But Cosette knew better than that. Cosette could surround you with a something, an emanation of all the woman in her, that was more efficient to enchant than the brains of a Georges Sand ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... accident of a moment's faintness, by which the conscious will of the girl had been driven back from the defences. In a short time it would be over. She would resume her ordinary demeanour, her ordinary interest, her ordinary bright, cheerful, attractive, matter-of-fact, efficient self. Everything would be as before. But—and here Bob's breath came quickest—in the great goodness of the world lay another possibility; that sometime, at the call of some one person, for that one and no other, this ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... 'to your becoming a doctor—you have not humbug enough.' The argument from these practical considerations leads to no conclusion. The main substance of the discussion is therefore a consideration of the qualities requisite for the efficient discharge of clerical or legal duties. A statement of these qualities, he says, will form the major of his syllogism. The minor will then be, 'I possess or do not possess them'; and the conclusion will follow, 'I ought to be a clergyman or ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... to retire, by several Brazilian vessels lying there at the time. We conjectured that she had left the West Indies, on a pretence of going to the coast of Africa, upon a slaving voyage, without any cargo, except perhaps a small quantity of specie, in dollars and gold, but carrying an efficient crew, composed of persons from various nations, and a good stock of provisions. Vessels, thus equipped, frequently traverse these seas, and being generally very fast sailers, they contrive to keep away from ships better armed than themselves, and to board only ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... moment a boat pushed out from the dock at the fort, and Sid Russell, who was Sam's most efficient lieutenant, and was scanning the whole bay for indications of ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston

... Perkins," wrote a son of Concord, himself an active participant in the fight, "on the superb management of his command, and the most admirable and efficient working of his ship, was upon ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... acquaintances were far from joining in these fears. The utter improbability of such a movement was obvious to all who considered the nature of the country to be traversed, and the efficient and numerous body of whites by whom they must be opposed on their entrance into that neighborhood. There were some, however, who could not be persuaded that there was any security but in flight, and eagerly was the arrival of the "Mariner" looked for, as the ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... by an efficient policy might perhaps have crushed these revolutionary movements in their birth, was naturally averse to violent, or even vigorous measures. He replied to the bishop of Cuenca, his ancient preceptor, who recommended these measures; "You priests, who are not called to engage in the fight, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... gamboling on every tree around us. My companion, a stout, hale, and athletic man, dressed in a homespun hunting-shirt, bare-legged and moccasined, carried a long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading it, he said had proved efficient in all his former undertakings, and which he hoped would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to show me his skill. The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with six-hundred-thread linen, ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... pointed her to Mary's quiet peace as a better way of living and serving. Anxiety of any kind unfits us in some degree for work. It is only when Christ comes and lays his hand upon our heart, and cures its fever, that we are ready for ministering in his name in the most efficient way. ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller

... general supply trains of the army. In accomplishing this I was several times on the verge of personal conflict with irate regimental commanders, but Colonel G. M. Dodge so greatly sustained me with General Curtis by strong moral support, and by such efficient details from his regiment—the Fourth Iowa Volunteer Infantry—that I still bear him and it ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan

... telephones; relatively efficient domestic system based on islandwide microwave radio relay network local: NA intercity: islandwide microwave radio relay network international: 1 coaxial submarine cable; 1 INTELSAT (Atlantic ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... State-subsidized family—in the case of Britain a very healthy and active group, the Royal family—which is not only State supported, but also beyond the requirements of any modern Socialist, State bred. There are enormous handicaps at every other social level upon efficient parentage, and upon the training of children for any public and generous end. Parentage is treated as a private foible, and those who undertake its solemn responsibilities are put at every sort of disadvantage against those who lead sterile lives, who give all their strength and ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... sticks upright and may not readily be pulled out. Of course there is a knack about it which cannot be put into words—I could have pricked off a hundred seedlings in the time I am spending in trying to describe the operation—but a little practice will make one reasonably efficient ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... thinking of the past, approached her somewhat diffidently; but if Bela harboured any resentment, she hid it well. She was the same to all, a wary, calm, efficient hostess. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... Butler, etc. Marshall thinks that if the force could have been held together it would have depopulated Kentucky; but this is nonsense, for within a week Clark had gathered a very much larger and more efficient body of troops.] He did not even get his cannon back to Detroit, leaving them at the British store in one of the upper Miami towns, in charge of a bombardier. The bombardier did not prove a very valorous personage, and on the alarm of Clark's advance, soon afterwards, he ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... There are foure kyndes of causes in this definicion. The formall cause is / chosinge and defending of picked doctrynes. The materiall parte or cause is picked doctryns contrary to Godds worde. For he that beleauith no doctryne at all / is godles / and not an Heretike. The cause efficient by which they are moued to Heresie is / ignoraunce and contempt of the holy scripture / and lust or couetus desire. The end whi men fall to Heresie is / to obtayne honors / and riches: For they do abhorre ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr

... leading-strings, and out of his present enchanted condition under the two Black-Artists he has about him, the Negotiation sinks again into a mere smoking, and extinct or plainly extinguishing state. The Grumkow-NOSTI Cipher Correspondence might be reckoned as another efficient cause; though, in fact, it was only a big concomitant symptom, much depended on by both parties, and much disappointing both. In the way of persuading or perverting Friedrich Wilhelm's judgment about England, this deep-laid piece of machinery ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... him to concentrate his forces and retire from Centerville. The concentration of our cavalry had been so complete that when it took an independent line of retreat it ceased, for the time, to be any efficient part of Schofield's forces, and left him without cover for his flank or means of rapid reconnoissance. For conclusive reasons he held during the day of the 29th the line from Spring Hill to the Duck River; but after ten ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... against any very fatal consequences. A great part of the army had passed before the surrender of the fort, which so completely commands the narrow valley leading to Aorta that it is difficult to comprehend the negligence of the Austrians in not throwing up more efficient works; by very simple precautions they might have rendered the passage of St. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of being a capable civil engineer 'Gene Black speedily proved himself efficient. Assistant Chief Engineer Blaisdell soon reported at headquarters that the new member of the corps was an exceedingly valuable man. Black was therefore placed at the head of a leveling squad that obtained ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock

... century Malthus and his followers taught the tendency of population to outgrow the means of subsistence—a tendency overcome only by restraints on the growth of population, or by new inventions that enable new sources of supply to be secured or that render the old ones more efficient. Emigration and pioneering are thus a normal outgrowth of a progressive growing people in any stage of civilization. What does the statement about Abraham's wealth in cattle and silver and gold show regarding the country ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks

... anticipated) her name alone proved enough to silence the landlord's virtuous protestations. One could not always avoid being deceived, he declared; he knew nothing of the dead man more than that he had come well recommended. With which he said no more, but lent an efficient if sullen hand to the task of transferring d'Aubrac ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... efficient, now looked helpless. It was true, the system by means of which so much had been done that morning, had proceeded from Esther's head solely. She was not ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... strode along the hall to the door of his office suite, "but the devil of it is I don't want any of them." A fresh thought brought to his face an expression a shade saner and less self-centered. "Mary is as beautiful and as charming as I am efficient, moreover she has brains," he soliloquized. "Mary must marry brilliantly and her ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... well it matters little if four officers have been killed reconnoitring or some wounded have had to be left under an abandoned gun all night. I started with an immense interest in tactics. This has nearly all left me and I remain a more or less efficient despatch-carrying animal—a part of a machine realising the hopeless, enormous size ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... a prerequisite of good memory, and in fact there can be no memory at all unless some degree of attention is given. The degree of memory depends upon the degree of attention and interest. And when it is considered that the work of today is made efficient by the memory of things learned yesterday, the day before yesterday, and so on, it is seen that the degree of attention given today regulates the quality of ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... prompting at first rather inefficient movements, but supplying the driving force while more and more effective methods are being acquired. A cat which is hungry smells fish, and goes to the larder. This is a thoroughly efficient method when there is fish in the larder, and it is often successfully practised by children. But in later life it is found that merely going to the larder does not cause fish to be there; after a series of random movements it is found that this result is to be caused by going to the ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell

... lad's knowledge of simples proved more efficient than any of them had dreamed. In the course of half an hour Rob's face brightened. "Why," said he, "I don't believe it hurts so badly now. Skookie, you are a great little doctor." And, indeed, that night he slept as soundly as any, although they all ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... week. Thank God, for my father's sake, I am better now, though still feeble. I wish indeed I had more general physical strength—the want of it is sadly in my way. I cannot do what I would do for want of sustained animal spirits and efficient bodily vigour. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... his favorite. "Drunk man's luck" forgot him several years later when his pony fell and rolled on him, breaking more ribs than could be mended. He left some insurance, two daughters, and a very efficient widow. Mrs. Dalton had held her own with her husband, even when he was at his worst. She was strong of body and mind, practical, probably somewhat hard, certainly with no sympathy for folderols. Her common-school education, in the country, had not opened ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... flames brought the fire-fighters out in hot haste with their engines, and up from the military station at the Presidio, on the Golden Gate side of the city, came at double quick a force of soldiers, under the efficient command of General Funston, of Cuban and Philippine fame. These trained troops were at once put on guard over the city, with directions to keep the best order possible, and with strict command to shoot ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... Lucy was fairly at work on the little frock, Stella good-naturedly offered to help her a little, though, never having been trained to perseverance in anything, her assistance was not very efficient. ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... referred to, the Exploring Party would be fitted out in the most efficient manner for continuing its operations, by selecting the strongest and most serviceable portion of the horses, equipment, etc., while the Auxiliary Party would return with the remainder to the settlements; ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... year, in Amherst's great campaign, Putnam returned to Montreal under better auspices. He was with that commander in his onward movement, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and rendered efficient service in the passage down the St. Lawrence, by his bravery and ingenuity. When the fort of Oswegatchie was to be attacked, and two armed vessels were in the way, he proposed to silence the latter by driving wedges to hinder ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... those of the Continental Line, the men who had fought on other fields, marched in other campaigns, and braved the suffering at Valley Forge. The militia was little more than an organized mob, indifferently armed, and loosely commanded. To me the mounted men, and the artillery, appeared most efficient, although I appreciated to the full the sterling fighting ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish

... edition of Dr (afterwards Sir) William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible (1867-1870), to which he contributed more than 400 articles besides greatly improving the bibliographical completeness of the work; was an efficient member of the American revision committee employed in connexion with the Revised Version (1881-1885) of the King James Bible; and aided in the preparation of Caspar Rene Gregory's Prolegomena to the revised ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... large deductions from the above, the performances of those who have reached the highest laryngeal control must remain marvellous, all the more when it is remembered that this control over the larynx, to be efficient for musical purposes, must be accompanied by a corresponding mastery of the art of breathing. Is it necessary to point out that such wonderful development and control can only be attained after years of steady ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... purpose. If she must not spend this penny on a bunch of violets, or that penny on a novelette, or the other penny on a toy for some baby, it is possible that she will concentrate her expenditure more upon physical necessities, and so become, from the employer's point of view, a more efficient person. Without the trouble of adding twopence to her wages, he has added twopenny-worth to her food. In short, she has the holy satisfaction of being worth more without ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... infallibility lay in the fact that the conservative adversaries of the Reformers were not in a position to contravene it without entangling themselves in serious difficulties; while, since both Papists and Protestants agreed in taking efficient measures to stop the mouths of any more radical critics, these did ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... princes, and magistrates, and the authority with which they are invested to rule and to tax, anciently owed their origin to a free determination of people who desired to establish thereby their own happiness; the free will of the nation is the only efficient cause, the only immediate principle and veritable source of the power of kings, and therefore the transmission of such power is only a representative act of a nation giving free expression to its own opinion. For a nation would not have recourse to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... I visited the alley, and went to the gap where it opened on to the ditch. There was an admirably efficient hotbed for rearing diseases there. A solid bed of sewage of about two feet deep seemed to fill the hollow, and a thin sheet of filthy water covered this bed—with sickly breaks here and there. Ordure palpable ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... enough, great difference of opinion as to the manner, though of course none as to the immediate cause of the death. Had it been accidental, or premeditated? The pundit, who in the performance of his duties on the Tenway platforms was so efficient and valuable, gave half-a-dozen opinions in half-a-dozen minutes when subjected to the questions of the Coroner. In his own mind he had not the least doubt in the world as to what had happened. But he was made to believe that he was not to speak his own mind. The gentleman, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece of code often got that way because it was highly {bum}med, but sometimes it was just based on a great idea. A comment in a clever routine by Mike Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at CMU: "This routine is so tense it will bring tears to your eyes." A tense ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... were white, and all the soldiers, whatever their caste or colour, free of course. Another battalion succeeded, composed in the same way, and really I was agreeably surprised to find the indigenous force of the colony so efficient. I had never seen any thing more soldier—like amongst our volunteers at home. Presently a halt was called, and a mounted officer, evidently desirous of showing off, galloped up to where we were standing, and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... not known to produce anything directly except nervous action, for the will influences even the muscles only through the nerves. Though it were granted, then, that every phenomenon has an efficient and not merely a phenomenal cause, and that volition, in the case of the particular phenomena which are known to be produced by it, is that cause; are we therefore to say with these writers that since we know ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

... who planned and carried out the very successful movement of this morning, has reported to me the very efficient help that he received from the men of the Imperial Light Horse as well as the other corps who were employed. When he told me last night that he was anxious to have a shy at the gun on Gun Hill, there was one thing that I determined on, and that was, that I would give ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... unconscious as to whether we were speaking English or French; we could express ourselves with equal facility in either language. When I first went to school, I could speak French as well as English, and it is a wonderful tribute to the efficient methods of teaching foreign languages practised in our English schools, that at the end of nine years of French lessons, both at a preparatory school and at Harrow, I had not forgotten much more than seventy-five per cent. of the French I knew when I went there. In the same way, after learning ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... with an abundant supply of natural resources; well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors; a stock exchange that ranks among the 10 largest in the world; and a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region. However, growth has not been strong enough to lower South Africa's high unemployment rate; and daunting economic problems remain from the apartheid era, especially ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... before the usual quarantine regulations had been carried through. Active and efficient agents had already taken charge of our affairs, so we had only to wait idly by the rail until summoned. Then we jostled our way down the long gangway, passed and repassed by natives carrying baggage or returning for more baggage, stepped briskly aboard a very bobby little craft, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... who has spent great pains in disciplining his mind into that state in which it shall always be able to produce good material. Which of these has made best progress towards the end of being a good and efficient preacher? Give me, I should say, on the whole, the solid material stock, rather than the trained inind. I look with a curious feeling upon certain very popular preachers, who preach entirely extempore: who make a few notes of their ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... honest fellow, harshened by The Job; a well-satisfied victim, with the imagination clean gone out of him, so that he took follow-up letters and the celerity of office-boys as the only serious things in the world. He was strong, alive, not at all a bad chap, merely efficient. ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... the fortnight that followed the shooting of the moose and the disappearance of Bill the sled-team driven by Jean and Jake was perhaps the finest and the most efficient in all that white world of hard-bitten, hard-trained, hard-working men and dogs. And, by that token, there was no happier team living, and none in better condition. There are not many teams, of course, whose ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... the efficient use of black manpower by complicating the training of black soldiers. Although training facilities were at a premium, the Army was forced to provide its training and replacement centers with separate ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... sacrifice would be considerable, for Hilary would have to do the work of their two rooms with her own hands, and give up a hundred little comforts in which Elizabeth, now become a most clever and efficient servant, had made herself necessary to them both. But the two ladies did not think of that at the moment; they only thought of the pain of parting with her. They thought of it sorely, even though she was but a servant, and there was a family parting close at hand. Alas! people must take ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... myself, I accounted it an excellent preparation for going into a sea-fight, where fortitude in standing up to your gun and running the risk of all splinters, comprise part of the practical qualities that make up an efficient man-of-war's man. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... first produced some thirty years ago at Drury Lane with Mr. James Anderson and Miss Vandenhoff as the principal personages. The interest centers not so much in the barbarian Ingomar as in his enchantress, Parthenia, of whom Miss Mary Anderson, an American artist of fine renown, proves a comely and efficient representative. In summing up the qualifications of an actress the Transatlantic critics never fail to take into account her personal charms—a fascinating factor. Borne on the wings of an enthusiastic press, the fame of Miss ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... who is of a sound and healthy constitution, in whom, therefore, the powers of life are energetic, and who up to this time has been nursed upon the breast of its parent, and now commences an artificial diet for the first time, disorder is scarcely perceptible, unless from the operation of very efficient causes. Not so, however, with the child who from the first hour of its birth has been nourished upon artificial food. Teething under such circumstances is always attended with more or less of disturbance of the frame, and disease of the most dangerous character but too frequently ensues. ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... no doubt that the preservation of the yacht from very serious damage, if not from complete destruction, was due to the prompt and efficient manner in which the extincteurs were used. It was not our first experience of the value of this invention; for, not very long before we undertook our present expedition, a fire broke out in our ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... rabbit, crying out in sudden fright and hurt, struggled painfully away into the brush. The boy himself was a flash of brown skin and flying fur as he bounded down the steep wall of the gap and up the other side. His lean muscles were springs of steel that released into graceful and efficient action. A hundred feet beyond, in a tangle of bushes, he overtook the wounded creature, knocked its head on a convenient tree-trunk, and turned it over ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London

... is wealthy, busy, commercial, Scotch, absorbent of whisky; but she is duly aware of other things. She has a most modern and efficient interest in education; and here are gathered what faint, faint beginnings or premonitions of such things as Art Canada can boast (except the French-Canadians, who, it is complained, produce disproportionately ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... he, raisin' his eyebrows, pained. "I beg your pardon, Torchy, but she is one of our most efficient ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... general assessment: highly developed, completely automated and efficient system, mainly buried cables domestic: nationwide cellular telephone system; buried cable international: country code - 352; 3 channels leased on TAT-6 coaxial submarine cable ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... though paradoxical, conviction that most of the European nations are more or less on their way, unconsciously indeed, to pure monarchy; that is, to a government in which, under circumstances of complicated and subtle control, the reason of the people shall become efficient in the apparent will of the king.[1] As it seems to me, the wise and good in every country will, in all likelihood, become every day more and more disgusted with the representative form of government, brutalized as it is, and will be, by the predominance of democracy in England, France, and Belgium. ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... era passed. It was soon evident that such foolishness would lead to grave disaster—if not to the grave; and the young business man who was seen to consume even one glass of beer at luncheon was frowned upon, catalogued as unsteady, even in the face of the fact that perhaps the most efficient people in the world were ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... of Hermann Stegemann's novels, good-natured practical joking is more at home. As the rough Alpine country demands the utmost of human industry, so in the realm of art it has developed a sympathy with practical, efficient life, which, disinclined to all speculation (for Spitteler stands well-nigh alone in this matter), is rather under the sway of pedagogical interests. In Switzerland literature is most indissolubly bound up with the life of the whole people, and a gay art for art's sake cannot ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... proportion to the quantity of music evolved through or by means of them, therefore the waste of the strings is the cause of the music, while in fact it is the hand of the player, and even the spirit behind the hand, which is the real and efficient cause of the music. So the form of the infinite and universal energy, which we may call erg-dynamic, is the cause of the waste of the body through which it works; and this is at once made good by the increased trophic metabolism which occurs, to replace the waste—this increased trophic ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... pleasant and profitable a meeting here in Rochester; also to many others due our thanks, to Dr. McKay for organizing a splendid program, to Mrs. Negus for organizing the registration, to Mrs. Gibbs and finally to our outstandingly efficient officers who have so skillfully organized our work and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various

... improvements in grain mills, and was generally efficient as one of the beginners in the field of American invention. Soon afterwards he is known to have made a steam-engine which was the first high-pressure double-acting engine ever made. The engine that used steam at each end of the cylinder with a vacuum and a condenser, was in this ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... of humble birth, even to aliens or slaves, provided that in themselves the men appear to be suitable mates. What really matters is that the royal stock, on which the prosperity and even the existence of the people is supposed to depend, should be perpetuated in a vigorous and efficient form, and for this purpose it is necessary that the women of the royal family should bear children to men who are physically and mentally fit, according to the standard of early society, to discharge ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... recreations of the world! Oh, if you are loving, faithful parents, you will love the society of your household more than the fashions and the fashionable resorts of the world; you will not substitute the "nurse" and the "boarding school" for the more efficient ministrations of ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... is perfect, their lines of supply and communication are without a flaw. The Prussian army machine of other days was but a bungling experiment by comparison with the efficiency of this new mechanism. I tell you, Gabriel, we've got to give these tyrants credit for being infernally efficient tyrants! All that science has been able to devise, or press and church and university teach, or political subservience make possible, is theirs. And back of that, military power, and the courts and the prisons and the electric chair! And back of all those, the power to choke the ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... and contumacious telephone. At the time of writing you can send a letter from San Francisco to London for less than it costs to send a similar letter from one London suburb to another. In America you have inter-state telephone service, you have the constant extension of an elaborate and efficient system, whilst on our side of the water we intelligent Europeans are asking to have the apparatus removed as ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... were connected with a button inside the car, within easy reach of the pilot. Lieutenant Verdane, our French second-in-command, was to supervise our practice on the field. We were glad of this. If we failed to "spear our sausage," it would not be through lack of efficient instruction. He explained to Drew how the thing was to be done. He was to come on the balloon into the wind, and preferably not more than four hundred metres above it. He was to let it pass from view under the wing; then, when he judged that he was directly over it, to reduce ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... Plot" was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... making it impossible for any civilian grand-jury ever to indict him and have him hanged. And now he had been automatically taken from the state militia into the national army, where he made a most efficient officer, with a ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... fish flies tied, rods that had been made by single members; we heard of all sorts of clever things that were being done in Aldine that would give the troop marks in the grand round-up. We listened to splendid speeches from the really efficient scout master, and our hearts warmed within us toward the gallant foe against whom we must soon be pitted; just as our bones ached because we had to squat there high up in that tree over their camp, like a couple of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... to the stable to hitch up he bade his wife put certain remedies into his bag,—"and look after that child," he called over his shoulder to his efficient Martha. She was so efficient that when he had brought Jinny and the buggy to the door, Philly was able to gasp out that Mr. ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland

... necessary that they should go about to make collections and to inspect the work in the shipyards, as well as in other places where they might be needed. It would be better to give them lower salaries, and if they proved themselves efficient in their duties, then they should be given an increase in the shape of an encomienda or another office, after having closed the account; for in this land, as all are soldiers, there are no guarantors or ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson

... you wouldn't be very efficient perhaps, and so you might resign yourself to sitting on that log and holding the berries in your lap, while I ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the approach of the other. The name of this gallant was Tom Smirk. He was clerk to an attorney, and was indeed the greatest beau and the greatest favourite of the ladies at the end of the town where he lived. As we take dress to be the characteristic or efficient quality of a beau, we shall, instead of giving any character of this young gentleman, content ourselves with describing his dress only to our readers. He wore, then, a pair of white stockings on his legs, and pumps on his feet: his buckles were a large piece of pinchbeck plate, which almost covered ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... An efficient apparatus for throwing a shell with a line and chain attached to it, over a stranded vessel, and thereby opening a communication between ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... for your efficient aid," said Knowlton, extending a hearty hand. "You have helped us to get going with all dispatch, and we trust that we can repay ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... murmured Jane, and then suddenly mastering herself, she continued: "but it is not enough to make the queen in love; doubtless it would be still more efficient if some one could instill a new love into the king. Did you see, father, with what ardent looks his majesty yesterday watched me and the ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... Streets, in Wilmington, is among the finest and most refined of the A. M. E. Conference. In appointing ministers to this post the most diligent care has always been exercised, for the appointee must be of the most eloquent, the most learned and efficient in the gift of the assembly. So St. Stephen's audiences have listened to some of the world's best orators, and have had the word expounded by superior doctors of divinity. Who of that great church can forget Frey Chambers, Thomas, Nichols, Gregg, Epps and others ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... being four hundred feet above the railroad tracks. More than eighteen miles of service pipe are now in use, and there are over two hundred fire hydrants at various points. The city is equipped with a fire alarm telegraph, having thirty-one signal boxes, and maintains an efficient and well managed Fire Department. It is thus easy to understand why Fitchburg seldom has a ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... compost, since nature is maximally efficient perhaps it would benefit us to first examine how nature goes about returning organic matter to the soil from whence it came. If we do nearly as well, we ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... as long as these last. Naturally, when ready money is not to be had on the market, one draws notes and tries to put them in circulation; one pays tradesmen with written promises in the future, and thus exhausts one's credit. Such is paper money and the assignats, the third and most efficient way for wasting a fortune and which the Jacobins did not fail to make the most of.—Under the Constituent Assembly, through a remnant of good sense and good faith, efforts were at first made to guarantee the fulfillment of written promises the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of all, and she was a more efficient guardian of the peace than ever Felix could be downstairs. Lance was to come on the evening of the 26th of June, after the examination for the exhibition, which, as he had told every one, he was quite sure not to gain. And then what was to be done with him, small ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in such observations as were to be made, I suggested that its superintendent, Admiral Sands, should be invited to serve as a member of the committee. "There," said Peirce, "we now have three names. Committees of three are always the most efficient. Why go farther?" ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... the fact that an animal or plant cannot be naturalized is no proof that it is not acclimatized. It has been shown by C. Darwin that, in the case of most animals and plants in a state of nature, the competition of other organisms is a far more efficient agency in limiting their distribution than the mere influence of climate. We have a proof of this in the fact that so few, comparatively, of our perfectly hardy garden plants ever run wild; and even the most persevering attempts to naturalize them usually fail. Alphonse de Candolle (Geographic ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... appears to us, roughly speaking, to resemble an ant-eater saddled with a dish cover; yet this creature, with the cunning Avhich Nature has given it to supplement all deficiencies, has discovered in its bony encumbrance a highly efficient weapon of offence. Most other edentates are diurnal and almost exclusively insectivorous, some feeding only on ants; they have unchangeable habits, very limited intelligence, and vanish before civilization. The hairy armadillo ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... see you accomplish it safely on our mountain trails, where the trot is the only gait practicable, unless you take for ever to get anywhere." To all of which the Easterner found no rebuttal except the, to him, entirely efficient plea that his ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... made, at their own extreme peril, to save Rothsay from his horrible fate. She invited them to join in her devotions; and at the hour of dinner gave them her hand to kiss, and dismissed them to their own refection, assuring both, and Catharine in particular, of her efficient protection, which should include, she said, her father's, and be a wall around them both, so long as ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... conflicts with Helvetii, Aedui, Remi, Nervii, Belgae, Veneti, Arverni, Aquitani, Ubii, Eubueones, Treveri, and other nations between the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rhine, and the sea. Their numbers were immense, and they were well armed, and had cavalry, military stores, efficient leaders, and indomitable courage. When beaten in one place they sprang up in another, like the Saxons with whom Charlemagne contended. They made treaties only to break them. They fought with the desperation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... danger of being thrown upon the coast, from the currents and the ground-swell, should have ceased, Paul Blunt observed, that he fancied it was the intention to take advantage of the smooth water within the reef, to get up a better and a more efficient set of jury-masts. But Captain Truck soon removed all doubts by letting the truth be known. While on board the Danish wreck, he had critically examined her spars, sails, and rigging, and, though adapted for a ship two hundred tons smaller than the Montauk, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... said Mr Narrowpath, who still stood at my elbow. "All that elaborate grill room breakfast business was just a mere relic of the drinking days—sheer waste of time and loss of efficiency. Go on and eat your egg. Eaten it? Now, don't you feel efficient? What more do you want? Comfort, you say? My dear sir! more men have been ruined by comfort—Great heavens, comfort! The most dangerous, deadly drug that ever undermined the human race. But, here, drink your water. ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock

... his own; the carpenter's pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk of all those numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with wood as an auxiliary material. But, besides the application to him of the generic remark above, this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually recurring in a large ship, upon a three or four years' voyage, in uncivilized and far-distant seas. For not to speak of his readiness in ordinary duties:—repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the shape of clumsy-bladed ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... to have his despatches twenty-four hours earlier than expected, and after praising the keenness which had led me to ask to return to duty in spite of my recent wounds, he added that as I had been so efficient a courier, I could leave for Paris that same night to take back some other portfolios; a task which would not prevent me from taking part in the campaign, which could not restart before ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... its efficient cause, wit owes its production to an extraordinary and peculiar temperament in the constitution of the possessor of it, in which is found a concurrence of regular and exalted ferments, and an affluence of animal spirits, refined and rectified to a great degree of purity; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... that kind of well- being which does come of organisation, from the order and regularity of system, living under central military authority, and bound themselves to military service; to furnish (as under later feudal institutions) so many efficient men-at-arms on demand, and maintain themselves in readiness for war as they laboured in those distantly-scattered farms, seldom visited by their true masters from Lacedaemon, whither year by year they sent in kind their heavy tribute of oil, barley and wine. ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... efficient officers ever paced the deck of a man-o'-war than Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell. The last two volumes chronicle the experiences of Dave and Dan in the ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... suffered a good deal. They felt malaria less, but they were more easily choked by dust and made ill by dampness. On the other hand, they submitted more readily to sanitary measures than whites, and, with efficient officers, were more easily kept clean. They were injured throughout the army by an undue share of fatigue duty, which is not only exhausting but demoralizing to a soldier; by the un-suitableness of the rations, which gave them salt meat instead of rice and ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... may be called upon to wield in defence of the state, as the Doge himself. In your country also, I believe, all men are obliged to learn the use of arms, to practise shooting at the butts, and to make themselves efficient, if called upon to take part in the wars of the country. And I have heard that at the jousts, the champions of the city of London have ere now held their own against those ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Efficient" :   efficacious, streamlined, inefficient, effectual, cost-efficient, competent, businesslike, cost-effective, high-octane, efficiency, expeditious, economic, economical



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