optimization
noun
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Optimization started its gradual perfection in mid-19th-century English, when it was derived from optimize, a word first used in the early part of that same century with the meaning "to make the best or most of." In basic applications, optimization refers to the act or process of making something as good as it can be. In the 21st century, it has seen much use in technical contexts having to do with attaining the best possible functionality, as in "network optimization" and "search engine optimization" (SEO). Like the words optimum and optimism (which refer, respectively, to the amount or degree of something that is best or most effective, and to a feeling or belief that good things will happen in the future), optimize and optimization derive from Latin optimus, meaning "best."
Examples of optimization in a Sentence
Kristin McKenna, Forbes.com, 23 July 2025
Additional savings would come from $200 million in technology modernization and optimization, and $250 million from consolidating business operations over the next 12 to 18 months.
—Catherine Muccigrosso
july 21, Charlotte Observer, 21 July 2025
Rana Adhikari, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, led the detector optimization team in the mid-2000s.
—Quanta Magazine, 21 July 2025
This move retires the old AAC acronym—which often got mixed up with the ACC—but introduces a new challenge: competing for search engine optimization with the 2010 George Clooney spy thriller of the same name.
—Daniel Libit, Sportico.com, 21 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for optimization
Cite this Entry
“Optimization.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/optimization. Accessed 4 Aug. 2025.
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