Definition of "expedient" []

• Appropriate to a purpose. (adjective)
• Serving to promote one's interest: was merciful only when mercy was expedient. (adjective)
• Based on or marked by a concern for self-interest rather than principle; self-interested. (adjective)
• Obsolete Speedy; expeditious. (adjective)
• Something that is a means to an end. (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.

• "Even speakers who were skeptical of capital controls thought there were circumstances under which they were a reasonable short-term expedient."
• "The military and landowning cliques in many South American countries will find it attractive financially to work with German fascist concerns as well as expedient from the standpoint of temporary power politics."
• "It is often referred to as expedient, but expediency is increasingly proving to be the deadly enemy of virtue."