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
Nicola Sfondrini, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025
This is also one of the first places in the country to practice opioid optimization.
—Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Money, 2 Sep. 2025
The company achieved a 58 percent reduction in water intensity, mainly driven by process optimization, increase of recovery of used water and advanced cleaning technologies.
—Angela Velasquez, Sourcing Journal, 2 Sep. 2025
Silicon Valley had just made a generation of Bay Area entrepreneurs (mostly men) very wealthy, and with their ascent came a utopian notion of self-improvement and optimization that would, the belief went, change the world.
—Thessaly La Force, New Yorker, 29 Aug. 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 8 Sep. 2025.
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