Other forms: economies
An economy is all the buying, selling, and working of a country seen as one machine. The global economy, a strong economy, economy class.
The other sense is thrift: an economy of words, a false economy. Economy class is named from that. Note that the Greek means household management, from oikos, a house — the whole subject is named after running a home, which is a useful thing to remember when the language gets grand.
1nouneconomyThe whole system of buying, selling and working.
“The country's economy depends heavily on tourism and farming.”
2nouncarefulCareful use of resources.
“She writes with great economy, never using two words where one will do.”
economy is a system, or thrift.
Greek oikonomia means household management, from oikos, a house, plus nemein, to manage. Ecology comes from the same house.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyḱ-
Ancient Greek
οἰκονομία — management of a household, administration
Latin
oeconomia
Middle English
yconomye
English, today
economy
Built from
From Middle English yconomye, yconomy, borrowed via Old French or Medieval Latin from Latin oeconomia, from Ancient Greek οἰκονομία (“management of a household, administration”), from οἶκος (“house”) + νέμω (“distribute, allocate”). by surface analysis, eco- + -nomy. The first recorded sense of the word economy, found in a work possibly composed in 1440, is “the management of economic affairs”, in this case, of a monastery.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA