"trade-off" meaning in English

See trade-off in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav , LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav Forms: trade-offs [plural]
Etymology: Deverbal from trade off. Etymology templates: {{deverbal|en|trade off}} Deverbal from trade off Head templates: {{en-noun}} trade-off (plural trade-offs)
  1. Any situation in which the quality or quantity of one thing must be decreased for another to be increased. Synonyms: compromise, tradeoff Derived forms: space-time trade-off, time-memory trade-off, time trade Translations (situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased): 折衷 (zhézhōng) (Chinese Mandarin), 妥協 (Chinese Mandarin), 妥协 (tuǒxié) (Chinese Mandarin), 取舍 (qǔshě) (Chinese Mandarin), compromis [neuter] (Dutch), kompromissi (Finnish), valinta (Finnish), vaihtokauppa (Finnish), compromis (French), Kompromiss [masculine] (German), Trade-off [masculine] (German), Ausgleich [masculine] (German), Abwägung [feminine] (German), Zielkonflikt [masculine] (German), αντιστάθμιση (antistáthmisi) [feminine] (Greek), αντιστάθμισμα (antistáthmisma) [neuter] (Greek), kompromisszum (Hungarian), fórnarkostir [masculine, plural] (Icelandic), fórnarskipti [neuter, plural] (Icelandic), トレードオフ (torēdoofu) (Japanese), 妥協 (dakyō) (alt: だきょう) (Japanese), компромис (kompromis) [masculine] (Macedonian), kompromis [masculine] (Polish), contraparte (Portuguese), dilema (Portuguese), compromis [neuter] (Romanian), компроми́сс (kompromíss) [masculine] (Russian), kompromis [masculine] (Serbo-Croatian), dilema (Spanish)

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "trade off"
      },
      "expansion": "Deverbal from trade off",
      "name": "deverbal"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Deverbal from trade off.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "trade-offs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "trade-off (plural trade-offs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English deverbals",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Japanese terms with redundant script codes",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with redundant script codes",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with redundant transliterations",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Dutch translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with French translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with German translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Greek translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Hungarian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Icelandic translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Japanese translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Macedonian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Mandarin translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Polish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Romanian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Russian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Serbo-Croatian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "space-time trade-off"
        },
        {
          "word": "time-memory trade-off"
        },
        {
          "word": "time trade"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "In writing, there's often a trade-off between being concise and being complete.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 May 19, Alex McLevy, “The final Game Of Thrones brings a pensive but simple meditation about stories (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2019-05-22:",
          "text": "Individual episodes are still thrilling and often quite striking, give or take some pitch-black battle scenes. But the gradual ramping up of the plotting that has grown steadily in the past three seasons crossed some invisible Maginot line this year, where the formerly acceptable trade-offs of focus for fun are no longer quite so taken for granted.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 June 12, Sir Michael Holden, “A manifesto for our railway to thrive”, in RAIL, number 1011, page 42:",
          "text": "All of these are of vital importance to the effective functioning of GBR. They all require the judgement of Solomon to handle the myriad and complex trade-offs between running trains and maintaining the railway, and deciding how capacity on any particular route can be optimised with all the competing demands from varying operators to run on it.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any situation in which the quality or quantity of one thing must be decreased for another to be increased."
      ],
      "id": "en-trade-off-en-noun--wgha4SC",
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "compromise"
        },
        {
          "word": "tradeoff"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "zhézhōng",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "折衷"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "妥協"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "tuǒxié",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "妥协"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "qǔshě",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "取舍"
        },
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "compromis"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "kompromissi"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "valinta"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "vaihtokauppa"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "compromis"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "Kompromiss"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "Trade-off"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "Ausgleich"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "Abwägung"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "Zielkonflikt"
        },
        {
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "roman": "antistáthmisi",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "αντιστάθμιση"
        },
        {
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "roman": "antistáthmisma",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "αντιστάθμισμα"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "kompromisszum"
        },
        {
          "code": "is",
          "lang": "Icelandic",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "masculine",
            "plural"
          ],
          "word": "fórnarkostir"
        },
        {
          "code": "is",
          "lang": "Icelandic",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "neuter",
            "plural"
          ],
          "word": "fórnarskipti"
        },
        {
          "code": "ja",
          "lang": "Japanese",
          "roman": "torēdoofu",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "トレードオフ"
        },
        {
          "alt": "だきょう",
          "code": "ja",
          "lang": "Japanese",
          "roman": "dakyō",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "妥協"
        },
        {
          "code": "mk",
          "lang": "Macedonian",
          "roman": "kompromis",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "компромис"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "kompromis"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "contraparte"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "dilema"
        },
        {
          "code": "ro",
          "lang": "Romanian",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "compromis"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "kompromíss",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "компроми́сс"
        },
        {
          "code": "sh",
          "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "kompromis"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
          "word": "dilema"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/91/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/91/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav.ogg"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/df/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/df/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "trade-off"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "space-time trade-off"
    },
    {
      "word": "time-memory trade-off"
    },
    {
      "word": "time trade"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "trade off"
      },
      "expansion": "Deverbal from trade off",
      "name": "deverbal"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Deverbal from trade off.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "trade-offs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "trade-off (plural trade-offs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English deverbals",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English phrasal nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Japanese terms with redundant script codes",
        "Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Dutch translations",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
        "Terms with French translations",
        "Terms with German translations",
        "Terms with Greek translations",
        "Terms with Hungarian translations",
        "Terms with Icelandic translations",
        "Terms with Japanese translations",
        "Terms with Macedonian translations",
        "Terms with Mandarin translations",
        "Terms with Polish translations",
        "Terms with Portuguese translations",
        "Terms with Romanian translations",
        "Terms with Russian translations",
        "Terms with Serbo-Croatian translations",
        "Terms with Spanish translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "In writing, there's often a trade-off between being concise and being complete.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 May 19, Alex McLevy, “The final Game Of Thrones brings a pensive but simple meditation about stories (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2019-05-22:",
          "text": "Individual episodes are still thrilling and often quite striking, give or take some pitch-black battle scenes. But the gradual ramping up of the plotting that has grown steadily in the past three seasons crossed some invisible Maginot line this year, where the formerly acceptable trade-offs of focus for fun are no longer quite so taken for granted.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 June 12, Sir Michael Holden, “A manifesto for our railway to thrive”, in RAIL, number 1011, page 42:",
          "text": "All of these are of vital importance to the effective functioning of GBR. They all require the judgement of Solomon to handle the myriad and complex trade-offs between running trains and maintaining the railway, and deciding how capacity on any particular route can be optimised with all the competing demands from varying operators to run on it.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any situation in which the quality or quantity of one thing must be decreased for another to be increased."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/91/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/91/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-trade-off.wav.ogg"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/df/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/df/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Wodencafe-trade-off.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "compromise"
    },
    {
      "word": "tradeoff"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "zhézhōng",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "折衷"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "妥協"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "tuǒxié",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "妥协"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "qǔshě",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "取舍"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "compromis"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "kompromissi"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "valinta"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "vaihtokauppa"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "compromis"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Kompromiss"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Trade-off"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Ausgleich"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Abwägung"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Zielkonflikt"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "antistáthmisi",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "αντιστάθμιση"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "antistáthmisma",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "αντιστάθμισμα"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "kompromisszum"
    },
    {
      "code": "is",
      "lang": "Icelandic",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "plural"
      ],
      "word": "fórnarkostir"
    },
    {
      "code": "is",
      "lang": "Icelandic",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "neuter",
        "plural"
      ],
      "word": "fórnarskipti"
    },
    {
      "code": "ja",
      "lang": "Japanese",
      "roman": "torēdoofu",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "トレードオフ"
    },
    {
      "alt": "だきょう",
      "code": "ja",
      "lang": "Japanese",
      "roman": "dakyō",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "妥協"
    },
    {
      "code": "mk",
      "lang": "Macedonian",
      "roman": "kompromis",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "компромис"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "kompromis"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "contraparte"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "dilema"
    },
    {
      "code": "ro",
      "lang": "Romanian",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "compromis"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "kompromíss",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "компроми́сс"
    },
    {
      "code": "sh",
      "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "kompromis"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "situation in which one thing must be decreased for another to be increased",
      "word": "dilema"
    }
  ],
  "word": "trade-off"
}

Download raw JSONL data for trade-off meaning in English (8.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.