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.Definitions on the go
Look up any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.
Check pronunciation:
expedient