Forms: 6 econ-, yconomie, 7 œconomie, (7, 8 æconomy), 7–9 œconomy, 7– economy. [ad. L. œconomia, ad. Gr. οἰκονομία, f. οἰκονόμος one who manages a household (usu. spec. a steward), f. οἶκο-ς house + -νόμος, f. νένειν to manage, control. The Gr. οἰκονόμος was adopted in classical Lat. as œconomus, but seems to have been re-introduced into med.L. from contemporary Gr. (in an ecclesiastical sense) with the phonetic spelling yconomus, whence the early Fr. and Eng. yconomie as forms of this word.
In Christian Latin the accepted transl. of οἰκονομία was dispensatio (cf. L. dispensator = Gr. οἰκονόμος steward); hence in certain Theol. senses economy and dispensation are used convertibly.]
I. Management of a house; management generally.
† 1. The art or science of managing a household, esp. with regard to household expenses. Obs. exc. in phrase Domestic economy.
c. 1530. Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866), 29. The Doctrynal Princyplis and Proverbys Yconomie, or Howsolde keepyng.
[1580. North, Plutarch (1612), 364. A part whereof is Oeconomia, commonly called house-rule.]
1673. Marvell, Reh. Transp., II. 255. You have contrary to … good œconomy made a snow-house in your upper Roome.
b. The manner in which a household, or a person’s private expenditure, is ordered. arch.
1710. Steele, Tatler, No. 50, ¶ 3. His Equipage and Oeconomy had something in them … sumptuous.
a. 1723. Mrs. Centlivre, Artifice, IV. (D.). He ought to be very rich, whose œconomy is so profuse.
1727. Pope, Th. Var. Subj., in Swift’s Wks., 1755, II. I. 229. Three great ministers, who could exactly compute … the accompts of a kingdom, but were wholly ignorant of their own œconomy.
1788. Priestley, Lect. Hist., V. xlix. 372. Impertinence … to watch over the œconomy of private people.
1825–45. Carlyle, Schiller, II. (ed. 2), 70. If you could find me any person that would undertake my small economy.
† c. concr. A society ordered after the manner of a family. Obs.
1751. Wesley, Wks. (1872), II. 249. At Holbeck we … had an economy of young men.
† d. The rules that control a person’s mode of living; regimen, diet. Obs. rare.
1735. Barber, in Swift’s Lett. (1768), IV. 85. The œconomy you are under must necessarily preserve your life many years.
2. In a wider sense: The administration of the concerns and resources of any community or establishment with a view to orderly conduct and productiveness; the art or science of such administration. Frequently specialized by the use of adjectives, as Domestic, Naval, Rural, etc. So † Charitable Economy [in Fr. économie charitable]: the management of charitable institutions.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxiii. 124. Speciall Administration … at home, First, for the Oeconomy of a Common-wealth.
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., 117. Of Naval Oeconomy or Husbandry.
1730. A. Gordon, Maffei’s Amphith., 344. ’Twould have been bad Oeconomy to make such an use of them [Cushions].
1772. Pennant, Tours Scotl. (1774), 194. Rural æconomy is but at a low ebb here.
1778. Robertson, Hist. Amer., I. IV. 320. The functions in domestic œconomy, which fall naturally to the share of women, are so many.
1787. Mrs. Trimmer (title), Œconomy of Charity; or, an Address to Ladies concerning Sunday-schools; [etc.].
1863. P. Barry (title), Dockyard Economy and Naval Power.
1866. Rogers, Agric. & Prices, I. xix. 455. Articles … employed in the … economy of agricultural operations.
b. esp. Management of money, or of the finances.
1741. Betterton, in Oldys, Eng. Stage, II. 7. It was not the only erroneous Instance of his Oeconomy.
1796. Burke, Let. Noble Ld., Wks. VIII. 23. A system of œconomy which would make a random expence … not easily practicable.
3. Political Economy [transl. Fr. économie politique]: originally the art or practical science of managing the resources of a nation so as to increase its material prosperity; in more recent use, the theoretical science dealing with the laws that regulate the production and distribution of wealth.
1767. Sir J. Steuart (title), An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., IV. Introd. II. 3. Political œconomy … proposes two distinct objects … to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people … and … to supply the state … with a revenue sufficient for the publick services.
1825. McCulloch, Pol. Econ., I. § 1. 1. Political Economy is the science of the laws which regulate the production, distribution, and consumption of those articles or products which have exchangeable value, and are either necessary, useful, or agreeable to man.
a. 1830. Sir J. Sinclair, Corr. (1831), II. 125. The French have long distinguished themselves by their knowledge of political economy.
1868. Rogers, Pol. Econ., i. (ed. 3), 2. The subject of a treatise on political economy is, the services which men render to each other; but those services only on which a price can be put.
4. Careful management of resources, so as to make them go as far as possible.
a. with reference to money and material wealth: Frugality, thrift, saving. Sometimes euphemistically for: Parsimony, niggardliness.
1670. Cotton, Espernon, I. II. 61–2. Men have since been very liberal in their censure of the Duke’s Oeconomy.
a. 1674. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., x. (1704), III. 88. Nor was this Oeconomy well liked even in France.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), I. 162. The luxury of Britain did not teach him [Holbein] more oeconomy than he had practised in his own country.
1770. Jas. Harris, in Priv. Lett. 1st Ld. Malmesbury, I. 196. There can be no independence without economy.
1863. Froude, Hist. Eng., VII. 5. The economy with which [Q.] Mary had commenced her reign had been sacrificed to superstition.
b. concr. An instance or a means of saving or thrift; a saving.
1788. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), II. 389. The suppression of the packets is one of the economies in contemplation.
1868. Rogers, Pol. Econ., xiii. (1876), 174. Improved breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, poultry are really economies.
1876. Times, 4 Oct., 7/2. It [the Railway Company] has only been saved from utter bankruptcy by economics.
c. with reference to immaterial things, as time, personal ability, labor, etc.
1862. Darwin, Fertil. Orchids, vi. 275. The economy shown by nature in her resources is striking.
1875. Hamerton, Intell. Life, III. vii. 107. To read a language that has been very imperfectly mastered is felt to be a bad economy of time.
II. 5. Theol. The method of the divine government of the world, or of a specific department or portion of that government.
1660. Jer. Taylor, Worthy Commun., i. § 1. 28. All this is the method and Oeconomy of heaven.
1725. trans. Dupin’s Eccl. Hist., I. v. 127. The whole Oeconomy of our Salvation might be the better represented.
1814. Chalmers, Evid. Chr. Revel., i. 15. That particular scheme of the divine economy which is revealed to us in the New Testament.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, II. 226. The true theological position of the Law—its true position, that is, in the Divine œconomy of salvation.
b. esp. A ‘dispensation,’ a method or system of the divine government suited to the needs of a particular nation or period of time, as the Mosaic, Jewish, Christian economy.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., Apol. 516. Tending to the greater ornament and completeness of the Christian Oeconomy.
1698. Norris, Pract. Disc. (1707), IV. 256. The Oeconomy of Faith should go before that of Vision.
1710. Prideaux, Orig. Tithes, ii. 58. The Mosaical Oeconomy.
1841. Myers, Cath. Th., III. § 4. 9. Doubtless this Egyptian influence in the Mosaic Economy has been largely over-rated.
1862. Goulburn, Pers. Relig., 97. The Economy of Grace.
1871. Macduff, Mem. Patmos, viii. 100. The twofold song descriptive of both economies.
III. 6. a. Theol. [after Gr. οἰκονομία in the late sense ‘politic administration.’] The judicious handling of doctrine, i.e., the presentation of it in such a manner as to suit the needs or to conciliate the prejudices of the persons addressed. b. This sense has been (by misapprehension or word-play) often treated as an application of 4. Hence the phrase economy (as if ‘cautious or sparing use’) of truth.
Newman’s history of the Arians (1833), contained a section on the use of ‘the Economy’ by the Fathers. The word was eagerly caught up by popular writers and used contemptuously, as if it were a euphemistic name for dishonest evasion; in this sense it is still freq. met with. The sense of οἰκονομία to which Newman referred occurs freq. in Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen; e.g., the former, commenting on the words ‘vain deceit’ (Col. ii. 8) says that some deceits are good, e.g., that practised by Jacob, which was οὐκ ἀπάτη ἀλλ᾽ οἰκονομία not a fraud but an ‘economy.’ The ecclesiastical use of the word occurs in Fr. writers of the 17th and 19th c., and was ridiculed by Voltaire; hence the appearance of b so early as 1796. See also ECONOMIC a. 5.
a. 1833. J. H. Newman, Arians, i. § 3 (1876), 65. The Economy is certainly sanctioned by St. Paul in his own conduct. To the Jews he became as a Jew [etc.]. Ibid. (1841), Tracts for Times, xc. (ed. 4), 83. What was an economy in the reformers, is a protection to us.
1885. E. S. Ffoulkes, Prim. Consecration, iv. 93. Whether S. Cyril pushed his economy—or, as it would now be called, his diplomacy—too far.
b. 1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, i. Wks. VIII. 208. Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever. But … there is an œconomy of truth … a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with reason that he may continue to speak it the longer.
Mod. ‘I do not impute falsehood to the Government, but I think there has been considerable economy of truth.’
IV. Organization, like that of a household.
7. The structure, arrangement, or proportion of parts, of any product of human design.
† a. spec. of a poem, play, etc. [Immediately from Gr. and Lat.] Obs.
1671. Milton, Samson, Introd. Such œconomy or disposition of the fable as may stand best with … decorum.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Past., Pref. **** d. In this, as in all other Points of Learning, Decency, and Oeconomy of a Poem, Virgil much excells his Master Theocritus.
b. gen.
1734. Watts, Reliq. Juv. (1789), 217. An odd sort of elegance in the oeconomy of her table.
1730. A. Gordon, Maffei’s Amphith., 311. The Crossings of Stairs … would confound the Oeconomy of the Building.
1751. Smollett, Per. Pic. (1779), II. xxxvii. 21. The œconomy of the table was recomposed.
1756. Colman & Thornton, Connoisseur, No. 103. That the oeconomy of the beaufait … may not be disarranged.
8. In wider sense: The organization, internal constitution, apportionment of functions, of any complex unity.
† a. of the Trinity. Obs.
1592. trans. Junius on Rev. iv. 2. According to the œconomie or dispensation thereof [of the divine essence].
1660. Jer. Taylor, Worthy Commun., i. § 3. 46. For now we are to consider how his natural body enters into this œconomy and dispensation.
1720. Waterland, Eight Serm., 268. This Order and Oeconomy, observable in the Persons of the Sacred Trinity.
b. of an individual body or mind. Sometimes concr. (like ‘system’) for the body as an organized whole.
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech. (1682), 176. The whole Oeconomy of the body.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Praise of Pov., Wks. 1730, I. 95. The whole oeconomy of their brain is corrupted.
1752. Hume, Ess. & Treat. (1777), I. 192. With regard to the œconomy of the mind, we may observe, all vice is indeed pernicious.
1880. J. W. Legg, Bile, 193. An effort of the œconomy to eject the poison.
c. of the material creation or its subdivisions, as in phrases, animal, vegetable economy, economy of nature.
1658. R. White, trans. Digby’s Powd. Symp. (1660), 53. Within the course and œconomy of nature.
1710. Shaftesb., Charac., II. § 1 (1737), II. I. 19. An Animal-Order or Oeconomy, according to which the Animal Affairs are regulated and dispos’d.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., Introd. 2. They … had no idea … of the vegetable œconomy.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem., v. (1814), 209. Water is absolutely necessary to the economy of vegetation.
1825. Waterton, Wand. S. Amer., II. ii. 174. We will retire to its forests to collect and examine the economy of its most rare and beautiful birds.
d. of human society as a whole, or of any particular community.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med. (1682), 16. Nor will [heads that are disposed unto Schism] be ever confined unto the order or œconomy of one body.
1651. Hobbes, Govt. & Soc., v. § 2. 75. In old time there was a manner of living, and as it were a certain œconomy … living by Rapine.
1712. Spect., No. 404, ¶ 1. In the Dispositions of Society, the civil Œconomy is formed in a chain as well as the natural.
1815. Dk. York, Lett., in Gurw., Disp. Wellington, X. 4. Your … attention must … be directed to … the interior economy of the different corps.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 67/2. This real value in the economy of society is not disparaged.
