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Expedient vs Convenience - What's the difference?

expedient | convenience |

As nouns the difference between expedient and convenience

is that expedient is a method or means for achieving a particular result, especially when direct or efficient; a resource while convenience is the quality of being suitable, useful or convenient.

As an adjective expedient

is simple, easy, or quick; convenient.

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.

    convenience

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • the quality of being suitable, useful or convenient
  • * Shakespeare
  • Let's further think of this; / Weigh what convenience both of time and means / May fit us to our shape.
  • anything that makes for an easier life
  • * Cowper
  • Thus first Necessity invented stools, Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • A pair of spectacles and several other little conveniences .
    Fast food is popular because of its cost and convenience .
  • a convenient time, especially in the phrase at one's convenience
  • (chiefly, British) a public toilet
  • Synonyms

    *

    Derived terms

    * convenience food * convenience store * flag of convenience * marriage of convenience