All 5 Uses
expedient
in
Sense and Sensibility
(Auto-generated)
- It may be proper to conceal their engagement (if they ARE engaged) from Mrs. Smith—and if that is the case, it must be highly expedient for Willoughby to be but little in Devonshire at present.†
Chpt 15expedient = convenient, speedy, or practical; or an action that is speedy or practical
- Elinor was not prepared for such a question, and having no answer ready, was obliged to adopt the simple and common expedient, of asking what he meant?
Chpt 27 *expedient = an action that is speedy or practical
- She had wandered away to a subject on which Elinor had nothing to say, and therefore soon judged it expedient to find her way back again to the first.†
Chpt 38expedient = convenient, speedy, or practical; or an action that is speedy or practical
- After that, I suppose, I WAS wrong in remaining so much in Sussex, and the arguments with which I reconciled myself to the expediency of it, were no better than these:—The danger is my own; I am doing no injury to anybody but myself.†
Chpt 49
- They passed some months in great happiness at Dawlish; for she had many relations and old acquaintances to cut—and he drew several plans for magnificent cottages;—and from thence returning to town, procured the forgiveness of Mrs. Ferrars, by the simple expedient of asking it, which, at Lucy's instigation, was adopted.†
Chpt 50
Definitions:
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(1)
(expedient) convenient and practical, but sometimes not the best or most moral choice
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(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Much more rarely, expedient can also imply that an action was taken for reasons of self-interest rather than for moral reasons.
In the sense of speedy, the word is less commonly used today than in the past; though it may still be used as in "an expedient end" or "an expedient amount of time," or "We are depending upon your expediency."