expedient
adjective/ɪkˈspiːdiənt/
/ɪkˈspiːdiənt/
[not usually before noun]- (of an action) useful or necessary for a particular purpose, but not always fair or right
- The government has clearly decided that a cut in interest rates would be politically expedient.
- The government found it expedient to relax the regulations a little.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- be
- prove
- appear
- …
- politically
Word Originlate Middle English: from Latin expedient- ‘extricating, putting in order’, from the verb expedire ‘extricate (originally by freeing the feet), put in order’, from ex- ‘out’ + pes, ped- ‘foot’. The original sense was neutral; the negative sense, implying disregard of moral considerations, dates from the late 18th cent.
Check pronunciation:
expedient