satisfice
/ˈsætɪsfaɪs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
Of human behavior: to make a choice that suffices to fulfill the minimum requirements to achieve an objective, without special regard for utility maximization or optimization of one's preferences.
Intransitive verb
Example Sentences
- "Evidently, organisms adapt well enough to ‘satisfice’; they do not, in general, ‘optimize’."
- "[T]here are two contrasting types of decision-making mentalities, maximizing and satisficing. If you're choosing a marriage partner, you probably want to maximize. You want to find the very best person you are totally in love with. […] But politics is not like that. Politics is a prosaic activity most of the time. You probably want to satisfice, pick the person who's good enough, who seems reasonably responsible."