Expedient vs Opportunistic - What's the difference?
expedient | opportunistic |
Simple, easy, or quick; convenient.
* Bible, John xvi. 7
* Whately
Governed by self-interest, often short-term self-interest.
* 1861 , John Stuart Mill,
(obsolete) Quick; rapid; expeditious.
* Shakespeare
A method or means for achieving a particular result, especially when direct or efficient; a resource.
* 1906 , O. Henry, :
* 2009 , (Diarmaid MacCulloch), A History of Christianity , Penguin 2010, page 709:
taking advantage of situations that arise
:* The danger now isn't so much from the AIDS virus itself as from opportunistic infections.
said of people who will take advantage of situations to advance their own interests, without regard for principles
:* You can't trust somebody that opportunistic -- she'll stab you in the back the first chance she gets.
As adjectives the difference between expedient and opportunistic
is that expedient is simple, easy, or quick; convenient while opportunistic is taking advantage of situations that arise.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)- Most people, faced with a decision, will choose the most expedient option.
- It is expedient for you that I go away.
- Nothing but the right can ever be expedient , since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a greater good to a less.
- 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.
- His marches are expedient to this town.
Noun
(en noun)- He would never let her know that he was aware of the strange expedient to which she had been driven by her great distress.
- Depressingly, [...] the expedient of importing African slaves was in part meant to protect the native American population from exploitation.