Expediency

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Expedience \Ex*pe"di*ence\, Expediency \Ex*pe"di*en*cy\,, n.
     1. The quality of being expedient or advantageous; fitness or
        suitableness to effect a purpose intended; adaptedness to
        self-interest; desirableness; advantage; advisability; --
        sometimes contradistinguished from {moral rectitude} or
        {principle}.


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              Divine wisdom discovers no expediency in vice.
                                                    --Cogan.
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              To determine concerning the expedience of action.
                                                    --Sharp.
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              Much declamation may be heard in the present day
              against expediency, as if it were not the proper
              object of a deliberative assembly, and as if it were
              only pursued by the unprincipled.     --Whately.
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     2. Expedition; haste; dispatch. [Obs.]
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              Making hither with all due expedience. --Shak.
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     3. An expedition; enterprise; adventure. [Obs.]
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              Forwarding this dear expedience.      --Shak.
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From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  expediency
       n : the quality of being suited to the end in view [syn: {expedience}]
           [ant: {inexpedience}, {inexpedience}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  27 Moby Thesaurus words for "expediency":
     appositeness, appropriateness, aptness, careworn, convenience,
     dernier ressort, design, expedient, fitness, makeshift, measure,
     meetness, order, propitiousness, propriety, recourse, resort,
     rightness, shift, step, stopgap, strategy, substitute, suitability,
     suitableness, surrogate, tactic