Dictionary

optimific en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˌɒp.tɪˈmɪf.ɪk/ (General-American)
• /ˌɑp.tɪˈmɪf.ɪk/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

From optimum + -ific.

Meanings

1. producing the optimum outcome
   • The U-agent will have few choices about how to lead his life, few opportunities to act on considerations of the kind of person he is, or wants to become. He will thus have little room for the things we associate with the very idea of 'leading a life'. These will all be submerged beneath the question of which causal levers are optimific. 2001, Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, page 26:
   • If we suppose that everyone will try to follow some set of rules, some possible rules would be optimific in the sense that, if these are the rules that everyone tries to follow, things would go best. 2011, Derek Parfit, On What Matters, volume 1, Oxford University Press, page 251:

Forms