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Expedient vs Immediate - What's the difference?

expedient | immediate |

As adjectives the difference between expedient and immediate

is that expedient is simple, easy, or quick; convenient while immediate is happening right away, instantly, with no delay.

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.

    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.

    immediate

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Happening right away, instantly, with no delay.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Assemble we immediate council.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=19 citation , passage=When Timothy and Julia hurried up the staircase to the bedroom floor, where a considerable commotion was taking place, Tim took Barry Leach with him. He had him gripped firmly by the arm, since he felt it was not safe to let him loose, and he had no immediate idea what to do with him.}}
  • Very close; direct or adjacent.
  • * Shakespeare
  • You are the most immediate to our throne.
  • Manifestly true; requiring no argument.
  • embedded as part of the instruction itself, rather than stored elsewhere (such as a register or memory location)
  • Derived terms

    * immediately

    Anagrams

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