Definition of "inefficient" in English

adjective

1. Not efficient; not producing the effect intended or desired; inefficacious.

   • Celery is an inefficient food.

2. Incapable of, or indisposed to, effective action; habitually slack or unproductive; effecting little or nothing.

   • inefficient workers
   • an inefficient administrator
   • Jessica was terribly inefficient at cleaning, so her brother usually had to clean the whole room.

noun

1. A person who cannot or does not work efficiently.

   • Two men were put to work who could not set their looms; a third man was taken on who helped the inefficients to set the looms. The other weavers thought this was a breach of their union rules and 18 of them struck […]