Throughput refers to the amount of work or data processed by a system, device, or network within a specific period of time. It is commonly used to measure the efficiency and performance of systems in fields such as computing, telecommunications, and manufacturing. Higher throughput indicates that more tasks or data units are being handled successfully in a given timeframe, which often translates to better system performance. Throughput is typically expressed in units such as bits per second (bps) for networks, transactions per second for databases, or units produced per hour in manufacturing.