Economy

How to spell economy

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce economy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does economy mean?

1. nounThe system by which a country or region produces, distributes, and consumes goods, services, and money.
2. nounCareful, sparing management of money, resources, or words.

Economy in a sentence

• Rising interest rates slowed the national economy for several quarters.

• She ran the household with great economy, wasting almost nothing.

• The report warned that the local economy depended too heavily on tourism.

• The editor praised the economy of his prose, which used no wasted words.

Where does economy come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the ancient Greek oikonomia, which literally meant 'household management', built from oikos meaning 'house' and nomos meaning 'managing' or 'law'. The original idea was the practical running of a home: balancing what came in against what was spent. It passed into Latin as oeconomia and then into French, reaching English in the sixteenth century, where it first described careful, thrifty management of resources before broadening in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to mean the management of a whole nation's wealth. The familiar prefix 'eco-', which now headlines words like 'ecology' and 'ecosystem', is the same oikos 'house', a useful reminder that the spelling starts with eco and not 'ee'. The single c and the unstressed schwa in the middle (ih-KON-uh-mee) are the parts that most often trip writers up.

How the word is built

• eco- (from oikos: house, household)
• -nomy (from nomos: management, law)