suboptimal
3
5.6
- adjective
- /sʌbˈɑptɪməl/
- The team's performance was suboptimal, leading to a disappointing outcome in the competition.
- suboptimal performance
- suboptimal level
- suboptimal outcomes
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Watch on YouTubeFine, your knife grip is suboptimal, but that's for another time.
- Fine, your knife grip is suboptimal, but that's for another time.
- So for example, I'm pathologically honest to a point that it's suboptimal to be right.
- And sometimes the suboptimal answer in the long term is the right one.
- They do not have a handle on their own value, don't have a sense of self advocacy, and may enter into suboptimal contracts and agreements.
- And I will use supplementation more as it's intended to supplement when my whole food options are suboptimal, right.
- You look at the way that these early computers did characters and it was absolutely suboptimal.
- Here's the prediction that I think what you're telling me makes about your worldview, that it was suboptimal to think in a more collectivist way.
- It is optimality that it was always suboptimal.
Examples
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The quality of spirometry has been highlighted as being of suboptimal standard in some areas of primary care.
Academic text (2011) -
And then over time, as a result, choices are suboptimal because too much risk is taken.
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But you might get a suboptimal design, right?
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And sometimes the suboptimal answer in the long term is the right one.
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This makes you human, but suboptimal as a soldier.
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Admittedly, some of the early results were suboptimal.
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Consequently, access to and the adoption of vision rehabilitation services has, to date, been suboptimal.
Academic text (2006) -
Each of you did the thing that was rational, but the coordinated effect of your actions gave you a wildly suboptimal result.
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Vanhove 7 found that suboptimal fertilization can reduce yield by one third.
Academic text (2017) -
Care in AKI is often suboptimal, and many opportunities for AKI prevention are missed.
Academic text (2016)
Synonyms
94
4.8
Only average in quality and not very good
70
3.7
Not as good in quality as something else
28
4.4
Not as good as the best, often cheap or simple
24
4.4
Not very good and worth less than similar things
19
3.0
Neither good nor bad
12
4.5
Not as good as people expect
12
2.0
Not very good at a skill or task
12
4.4
Less impressive or exciting than you expect
10
4.6
Having average quality, neither very good nor very bad
9
3.9
Not very good or likely to attract attention
3
8.1
Average and not very impressive
1
6.9
Medium quality, neither very good nor very bad
Lower than the normal level in quality or performance
Not very good in quality or condition
Antonyms
How Good
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Suboptimal combines the part sub- meaning 'below' and optimal meaning 'best'. So suboptimal means 'below the best', which is why we use it for something that works but is not as good as the ideal.