Efficacious
What it means
Successful in producing the intended result.
Reach for it when formally describing an intervention shown to achieve its stated aim
The review found the revised treatment both safe and efficacious.
Words to choose between 6
| everyday | |
|---|---|
| professional | |
| formal |
|
| literary |
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everyday
Fits when useful output or progress is the desired result
Careful Productive is wrong for treatments or safeguards whose value is not output.
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everyday
Fits when a completed attempt achieved its goal
Careful Successful can depend on circumstances and does not isolate the intervention's effect.
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professional
Fits when plain language can state that something works
Careful Effective may report actual results without attributing inherent capacity.
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professional
Fits when adequacy for a defined practical task has been tested
Careful Fit for purpose sets a sufficiency bar and may understate strong evidence of effect.
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professional
Fits when a substance or influence has strong power
Careful Potent concerns strength and may increase harms as well as benefits.
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literary
Fits when the effect is beneficial, especially after correction
Careful Salutary means beneficial rather than demonstrably capable of working.
Opposites 4
- inefficacious
- ineffective
- futile
- impotent
Common phrases 3
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safe and efficacious
The panel required evidence that the therapy was safe and efficacious.
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clinically efficacious
A clinically efficacious drug may still be difficult to deliver equitably.
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prove efficacious
The simpler protocol may prove efficacious in community clinics.
Definitions and examples are written for this site. How words are chosen Recording: Vealhurl, Southern England accent, from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 Updated