returns
n. C / Un. the profit or benefit you get from an investment or a piece of work. In business, it can also mean the items that customers send back to a shop.
n. the financial gain or loss yielded by an investment; the yield or profit generated by a specific activity. Often used in the plural to describe the volume of goods sent back by consumers to a retailer.
The company expects high returns on its latest technology investment.
The retail giant struggled to manage the high volume of returns during the week following the holiday sales.
While the initial capital outlay was significant, the projected long-term returns justified the risk of entering an emerging market with high volatility.
Commonly used in the plural when referring to financial profit or items sent back to a store; the singular form often refers to the act of returning or a specific document like a tax return.
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diminishing returns
A condition in which additional inputs into an organization, project or process produce progressively fewer or lower-quality additional outputs, and may, in extreme cases, cause the total quantity or quality of outputs to decrease.
- 02
many happy returns
A greeting, usually for birthdays, in reference to the passing year; Happy birthday!
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returns to scale
a function describing how returns scale when production increases in the long run