Definition of "maximize" []

• To increase or make as great as possible: "the ideal of maximizing opportunity through the equalizing of educational opportunity” ( Robert J. Havighurst). (verb-transitive)
• To assign the highest possible importance to. (verb-transitive)
• Mathematics To find the largest value of (a function). (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It's not going to work because "take the existing biz and maximize" is the job for a direct marketer, or an ad guy, not an architect."
• "The second answer is, I believe, if you look at how much money we're spending on health care, if we can redirect a lot of the money that would be saved from administrative costs and from insurance overcharges per person because of the system we have, if we could do more preventive and primary health care, if we can, in short, maximize the money we're now spending and keep people like you in big pools, I believe there would be enough money to cover your care."
• "A basic argument behind identifying happiness as the thing-to-maximize is that 1) everything that is good is good for someone and 2) the only things that are good for someone are that person’s experiences (although some utilitarians, like Richard, think that the thing-to-maximize is not happiness but something else, like desire-fulfillment)."