economy

1. 1. Careful, thrifty management of resources, such as money, materials, or labor: learned to practice economy in making out the household budget.

   2. An example or result of such management; a saving.

   3. The system or range of economic activity in a country, region, or community: Effects of inflation were felt at every level of the economy.

   4. A specific type of economic system: an industrial economy; a planned economy.

2. 1. The system or range of economic activity in a country, region, or community: Effects of inflation were felt at every level of the economy.

   2. A specific type of economic system: an industrial economy; a planned economy.

3. An orderly, functional arrangement of parts; an organized system: "the sense that there is a moral economy in the world, that good is rewarded and evil is punished" (George F. Will).

4. Efficient, sparing, or conservative use: wrote with an economy of language.

5. The least expensive class of accommodations, especially on an airplane.

6. Theology The method of God's government of and activity within the world.

Word History: Managing an economy has at least an etymological justification. The word economy can be traced back to the Greek word oikonomos, "one who manages a household," derived from oikos, "house," and nemein, "to manage." From oikonomos was derived oikonomiā, which had not only the sense "management of a household or family" but also senses such as "thrift," "direction," "administration," "arrangement," and "public revenue of a state." The first recorded sense of our word economy, found in a work possibly composed in 1440, is "the management of economic affairs," in this case, of a monastery. Economy is later recorded in other senses shared by oikonomiā in Greek, including "thrift" and "administration." What is probably our most frequently used current sense, "the economic system of a country or an area," seems not to have developed until the 19th or 20th century.