All 4 Uses of
expedient
in
Swann's Way
- his actions were generally dictated by chance expediencies rather than based on any formal plan.
Chpt 1 *expediencies = actions that are convenient
- He told himself that, in choosing the thought of Odette as the inspiration of his dreams of ideal happiness, he was not, as he had until then supposed, falling back, merely, upon an expedient of doubtful and certainly inadequate value, since she contained in herself what satisfied the utmost refinement of his taste in art.†
Chpt 3
- So that a lie was, to her, something to be used only as a special expedient; and the one thing that could make her decide whether she should avail herself of a lie or not was a reason which, too, was of a special and contingent order, namely the risk of Swann's discovering that she had not told him the truth.†
Chpt 3
- …admire once again the wisdom of people in society, who refused to mix in the artistic circles in which such things were possible, were, perhaps, even openly avowed, as excellent jokes; but then he recalled the marks of honesty that were to be observed in those Bohemians, and contrasted them with the life of expedients, often bordering on fraudulence, to which the want of money, the craving for luxury, the corrupting influence of their pleasures often drove members of the aristocracy.†
Chpt 3
Definition:
-
(expedient) a practical action -- especially one that accepts negative tradeoffs due to circumstances
or:
convenient, speedy, or practical