Meaning of performance in English

performance

noun

/pɚˈfɔːr.məns/ uk

/pəˈfɔː.məns/

performance noun (ACTIVITY)

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B2 [ C or U ]

how well a person, machine, etc. does a piece of work or an activity:

He was an experienced player who was always seeking to improve his performance.

High-performance cars (= those that are fast, powerful, and easy to control) are the most expensive.

This was a very impressive performance by the young player, who scored 14 points within the first ten minutes.

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The financial performance of the business is fully expected to improve.
He was fired from his $165,000 job for poor performance.
At the end of each teaching practice, trainee teachers are asked to appraise their own performance.
That was an impressive performance from such a young tennis player.
When criticisms were made of the school's performance, the parents' group countered with details of its exam results.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Acting and acts

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performance noun (ENTERTAINMENT)

B1 [ C ]

the action of entertaining other people by dancing, singing, acting, or playing music:

a performance of Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible"

She gave a superb performance as Lady Macbeth.

a performance mainly UK informal

an action or type of behavior that involves a lot of attention to detail or to small matters that are not important:

Cleaning the oven is such a performance.

What a performance! Please stop shouting!

The fish pie is a bit of a performance to make.

We managed to assemble the bookshelves eventually, but it was a real performance.

We had such a performance getting the new sofa into the house.

a repeat performance

an occasion when an event or a situation happens again:

The police hope to avoid a repeat performance of last year, when the festivities turned into rioting.

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We all clapped his performance enthusiastically.
an electrifying performance
The audience was enraptured by the young soloist's performance.
There was an explosion of applause from the audience at the end of the performance.
She gave a masterly performance as Kate in 'The Taming of the Shrew'.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Spectacles & performances

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Difficult things and people

(Definition of performance from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

performance | Intermediate English

performance

noun

/pərˈfɔr·məns/

performance noun (DOING)

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[ U ]

the act of doing something, such as your job:

If the accident happened during the performance of his regular duties, he’s covered by disability insurance.

[ U ]

Performance also refers to how well an activity or job is done:

With a record of 2 wins and 3 defeats, the team’s performance has been disappointing.

(Definition of performance from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

performance | Business English

performance

noun

/pəˈfɔːməns/ us

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[ C or U ]

how successful an investment, company, etc. is and how much profit it makes:

The Fund's past performance does not necessarily indicate how it will perform in the future.

good/solid/strong performance Last year saw a strong performance from the high-street retailer.

bad/disappointing/poor performance The retailer said it would restructure operations to cut costs after its disappointing performance of the past year.

business/economic/financial performance Financial performance was below expectations and we are working on improvements.

boost/improve/measure performance The board is under pressure to improve performance following a profits warning in January.

The business value model should include high-level performance measures such as profitability, market growth, etc.

operating/trading performance

[ U ] IT

how well a computer, machine, etc. works:

The latest Intel-based notebooks rival PC performance.

[ U ]

how well someone does their job or their duties:

good/impressive/poor perfomance He was fired for poor performance.

John's departure is not directly related to his performance.

LAW formal

the act of doing what is stated in a legal agreement:

Subject to due performance of its obligations, each Party shall be entitled to receive copies of all results.

Examples of performance

performance

Here is the full schedule of the performances.

From International Business Times

All the tools you'd usually use when you're acting are not there except for your performance.

From Washington Times

You should know this wasn't the first time a performance has brought me to tears.

From Huffington Post

Check out a clip from their performance below.

From Huffington Post

If there's a performance on the night you are in town, plan to go.

From Huffington Post

Perhaps more than anything else, it's a sustained piece of performance art.

From International Business Times

Last year was the industry's best performance since 2007, when 16.1 million new cars and trucks were sold.

From New York Daily News

And that's something you want to try to get rid of in a performance.

From NPR

I loved to hear his performance of the poem.

From The Atlantic

Women who were told they were being tested for gender differences in math performance did significantly worse.

From Fast Company

But she clearly addresses the performances of the individual actors.

From OregonLive.com

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with performance

performance

These are words often used in combination with performance.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

academic performance

The relationship of life change to academic performance among selected college freshmen at varying levels of college readiness.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

acoustic performance

Furthermore, mimetic aspects affected the relationships between acoustic performance and electroacoustic media, including fixed and live electronic components.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

actual performance

The actual performance effect will depend both on the application and on the network latency and bandwidth characteristics.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all collocations with performance

What is the pronunciation of performance?