trade-off

• tradeoff

Deverbal from trade off.

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Audio (US)

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trade-off (plural trade-offs)

1. Any situation in which the quality or quantity of one thing must be decreased for another to be increased.

   In writing, there's often a trade-off between being concise and being complete.

   • 2019 May 19, Alex McLevy, “The final Game Of Thrones brings a pensive but simple meditation about stories (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎:

     Individual episodes are still thrilling and often quite striking, give or take some pitch-black battle scenes. But the gradual ramping up of the plotting that has grown steadily in the past three seasons crossed some invisible Maginot line this year, where the formerly acceptable trade-offs of focus for fun are no longer quite so taken for granted.

• compromise

• off-trade