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Expedient vs Expeditious - What's the difference?

expedient | expeditious |

As adjectives the difference between expedient and expeditious

is that expedient is simple, easy, or quick; convenient while expeditious is fast, prompt, speedy.

As a noun expedient

is a method or means for achieving a particular result, especially when direct or efficient; a resource.

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.

    Related terms

    * expede * expedience * expediency * expedite * expedition

    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.

    External links

    * * ----

    expeditious

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Fast, prompt, speedy.
  • * 1815 , , Emma , ch. 38,
    • Our coachman and horses are so extremely expeditious !—I believe we drive faster than any body.
  • (of a process or thing) Completed or done with efficiency and speed; facilitating speed.
  • * 1816 , , The Antiquary , vol. 1, ch. 7,
    • As they thus pressed forward, longing doubtless to exchange the easy curving line, which the sinuosities of the bay compelled them to adopt, for a straighter and more expeditious path, Sir Arthur observed a human figure on the beach.
  • * 1844 , , Barry Lyndon , ch. 14,
    • Now, there was a sort of rough-and-ready law in Ireland in those days, which was of great convenience to persons desirous of expeditious justice.

    Related terms

    * expedite * expeditiously