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Definition of "expediency" []

  • Appropriateness to the purpose at hand; fitness. (noun)
  • Adherence to self-serving means: an ambitious politician, guided by expediency rather than principle. (noun)
  • A means; an expedient. (noun)
  • Obsolete Speed; haste. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "expediency" in a sentence
  • "Yet here too we may observe that what we term expediency is merely the law of right limited by the conditions of human society."
  • "I can't say I share your 'Mea Culpa' view re lack of theory ... there is no great question of theory behind the advocacy of the slogan, nor of lack of theory behind our objections to it; and I still think the switching off from class struggle to race struggle an exaggeration, and a departure from Lenin, quite apart from what you call expediency (as if 'theory' were something above expediency or expediency below theory)."
  • "Also, and kind of ironically, you have to regard the theoretical McCain model of a politician as a straight shooting, straight talker, as a bad politician to support, since straight talking at the cost of political expediency is a bad thing. cmholm Says:"