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Expedient vs Competent - What's the difference?

expedient | competent | Related terms |

Expedient is a related term of competent.


As a noun expedient

is expedient.

As a verb expedient

is .

As an adjective competent is

competent (able).

expedient

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Simple, easy, or quick; convenient.
  • Most people, faced with a decision, will choose the most expedient option.
  • * Bible, John xvi. 7
  • It is expedient for you that I go away.
  • * Whately
  • Nothing but the right can ever be expedient , since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a greater good to a less.
  • Governed by self-interest, often short-term self-interest.
  • * 1861 , John Stuart Mill,
  • But the Expedient', in the sense in which it is opposed to the Right, generally means that which is ' expedient for the particular interest of the agent himself; as when a minister sacrifices the interests of his country to keep himself in place.
  • (obsolete) Quick; rapid; expeditious.
  • * Shakespeare
  • His marches are expedient to this town.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A method or means for achieving a particular result, especially when direct or efficient; a resource.
  • * 1906 , O. Henry, :
  • He would never let her know that he was aware of the strange expedient to which she had been driven by her great distress.
  • * 2009 , (Diarmaid MacCulloch), A History of Christianity , Penguin 2010, page 709:
  • Depressingly, [...] the expedient of importing African slaves was in part meant to protect the native American population from exploitation.

    competent

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having sufficient skill, knowledge, ability, or qualifications.
  • He is a competent skier and an expert snowboarder.
  • (legal) Having jurisdiction or authority over a particular issue or question.
  • For any disagreements arising from this contract, the competent court shall be the Springfield Circuit Court.
    judicial authority having competent jurisdiction
  • Adequate for the purpose
  • * 1662 , , Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 67:
  • "For if [birds] had been Viviparous , the burthen of their womb, if they had brought forth any competent number at a time, had been so big and heavy, that their wings would have failed them "

    Quotations

    * "I believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent men as the convolutions of the grey matter." - James Joyce, Ulysses , 1922 * "That as a competent keyless citizen he had proceeded energetically from the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void." - James Joyce, Ulysses , 1922