1. Careful management of resources to avoid unnecessary expenditure or waste; thrift. 2. A means or instance of this; saving 3. Sparing, restrained, or efficient use, esp to achieve the maximum effect for the minimum effort: economy of language. 4. The complex of human activities concerned with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. 5. A particular type or branch of such production, distribution, and consumption: a socialist economy; an agricultural economy. 6. The management of the resources, finances, income, and expenditure of a community, business enterprise, etc. 7. A class of travel in aircraft, providing less luxurious accommodation than first class at a lower fare: economy class. 8. Offering or purporting to offer a larger quantity for a lower price: economy pack. 9. The orderly interplay between the parts of a system or structure: the economy of nature. 10. The principle that, of two competing theories, the one with less ontological presupposition is to be preferred.

Related Entries