1 producing the result that is wanted or intended; producing a successful result:
Long prison sentences can be a very effective deterrent for offenders. * Aspirin is a simple but highly effective treatment. * drugs that are effective against cancer * Some people believe that violence is an effective way of protesting. * I admire the effective use of colour in her paintings.
OPPINEFFECTIVE
seealsoCOST-EFFECTIVE
2 [onlybeforenoun] in reality, although not officially intended:
the effective, if not the actual, leader of the party * In spite of what they are told, parents have no effective choice of schools. * He has now taken effective control of the country.
3 (formal) (of laws and rules) coming into use:
The new speed limit on this road becomes effective from 1 June.
effectiveness (also less frequent effectivity ) noun [U]:
to check the effectiveness of the security system
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
Where does this definition of effective come from?
This entry for effective is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is effective a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, effective is tagged as adjective.
Does effective appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — effective appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.