Sufficient means there is as much of something as the job needs, and nothing more is required. Sufficient evidence to bring a charge, sufficient funds in the account, sufficient light to read by.
It is the formal cousin of enough, and the two sit differently in a sentence: sufficient time, sufficient grounds, sufficient for two people. In everyday speech enough wins — 'have you had sufficient?' at a dinner table sounds stiff. The adverb is sufficiently (sufficiently warm to sit outside) and the opposite is insufficient, the word your bank uses about your balance. Self-sufficient means needing no help from outside. In logic and maths a sufficient condition guarantees the result on its own, and it is set against a necessary one, which must be there but may not be enough by itself.
1adjectivesufficientAs much as is needed for a particular purpose.~89%
“There was sufficient evidence to bring charges.”
formal in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
2adjectivelogicIn logic and maths, guaranteeing a result on its own.~11%
“Heavy rain is sufficient to cancel the match, though it is not necessary.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 18 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: enough, adequate
Latin sufficiēns is the present participle of sufficiō, and it reached English through Old French sufisanz. Further back the trail runs to the Proto-Indo-European root *dʰeh₁-. The word arrives as a participle, a verb still in motion, which is why sufficient always begs the question: enough for what?
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁-
Latin
sufficiēns
Old French
sufisanz
English, today
sufficient
From Old French sufisanz, soficient, from Latin sufficiēns, present participle of sufficiō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA