1.
[syn: expedience, expediency]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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.
[1913 Webster]
Divine wisdom discovers no expediency in vice.
--Cogan.
[1913 Webster]
To determine concerning the expedience of action.
--Sharp.
[1913 Webster]
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.
[1913 Webster]
2. Expedition; haste; dispatch. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
Making hither with all due expedience. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
3. An expedition; enterprise; adventure. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
Forwarding this dear expedience. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
expediency
n 1: the quality of being suited to the end in view [syn:
expedience, expediency] [ant: inexpedience,
inexpediency]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
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