EFFECTIVE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Effective

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/ɪfˈɛktɪv/ /ˈifɛktɪv/ Listen

adjective

Effective adj. Having the power to produce an effect or effects; producing a decided or decisive effect; efficient; serviceable; operative; as, an effective force, remedy, speech; the effective men in a regiment. "They are not effective of anything, nor leave no work behind them." "Whosoever is an effective, real cause of doing his heighbor wrong, is criminal."

Synonyms: Efficient; forcible; active; powerful; energetic; competent. See Effectual.

noun

Effective n.

That which produces a given effect; a cause.

One who is capable of active service. "He assembled his army 20,000 effectives at Corinth."

(Com.) Specie or coin, as distinguished from paper currency; a term used in many parts of Europe.

The serviceable soldiers in a country; an army or any military body, collectively; as, France's effective.

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Etymology of 'Effective'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Effective" Quotes from Famous Books

... Collection: In the fort thirty-nine men; in the ship left to defend Cochin twenty-five; in the caravel which accompanied him in the expedition to Cambalan twenty-six; into one boat twenty-three; and in the boat along with himself twenty-two; making his whole effective force 135 men; seventy-one only of which went along with him to ...

— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... belt tighter and tighter around his waist every hour, till, by evening, he had reached the last notch. This method of appeasing the pangs of hunger, adopted by the Indians when they have nothing to eat, is said to be very effective. ...

— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... to the Senate, August 7, 1789, Washington had urged the importance of "some uniform and effective system for the militia of the United States," saying that he was "particularly anxious" it should receive early attention. On January 18, 1790, General Knox submitted to Congress a plan to which there are frequent references in Washington's diary, showing the special interest he took ...

— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... unfortunate, which, though in itself a failure, yet ministered to make the scattered children of the Covenant again co-operate for the achievement of their common freedom. Doubtless the expedition was undertaken before the persecuted were sufficiently ripened to be of any effective service. The Earl counted overmuch on the spirit which the Persecution had raised; he thought that the weight of the tyranny had compressed us all into one body. But, alas! it had been so great, that it had not only bruised, but broken us asunder into many pieces; and time, and care, and ...

— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... university preliminaries, excogitates similar weird lists of anomalies and exceptions, and doses the pupils on such stuff instead of really teaching the important parts of his subject. Experience seems to prove that the most effective way of rendering a subject dry, uneducational, and generally useless is to set examination papers on it. What can be more outrageous and grotesque than the practice of setting out-of-the-way questions because of the ease thus afforded to the examiners in correcting the answers of the ...

— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

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