Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use expedient in a sentence

18 example sentences · adjective, noun

Expedient means suitable to effect some desired end or the purpose intended. Example: “Most people, faced with a decision, will choose the most expedient option.”

Examples of expedient by meaning

adjectiveSuitable to effect some desired end or the purpose intended.

  • Most people, faced with a decision, will choose the most expedient option.

adjectiveAffording short-term benefit, often at the expense of the long-term.

  • And politics, or the taking of expedient steps to keep people happy, will almost always win.2009, CQ Weekly, volume 67, numbers 31-36, page 2190
  • Government has slowly but positively moved from an active course of following plans and policies to the easier and more expedient course of the counterpuncher.2011, L. Fletcher Prouty, Jesse Ventura, The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World
  • Its policies toward foreign lab or across these eras reflect these sharp differences in context, but also reflect a common pattern to treat the recruitment and deployment of foreign nationals as an expedient measure to serve immediate economic objectives2013, Douglas B. Klusmeyer, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Immigration Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany

nounA method or means for achieving a particular result, especially when direct or efficient; a resource.

  • He would never let her know that he was aware of the strange expedient to which she had been driven by her great distress.1906, O. Henry, The Green Door

More sentences with expedient

  • In such conditions a relatively inexpensive expedient is the flat store.1994, Norman Leslie Kent, A. D. Evers, Technology of Cereals, →ISBN. From the entry flat store
  • Anopsology is not medicine since it makes no use of diagnoses, chemical products or technical expedients.1987, Severen L. Schaeffer, Instinctive Nutrition, →ISBN, page 120. From the entry anopsology
  • The stilted arch was a good and much used expedient in ancient and modern times.1920, G[eorg Gottlob] Ungewitter, K. Mohrmann, “Vaults”, in N[athan] Clifford Ricker, transl., Manual of Gothic Construction … Rewritten…. From the entry stilted
  • At that time there were short-term expedients, salami slicing and budgets being cut without regard to the impact on quality.2012, Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee, Public expenditure: thirteenth report of session 2010-12, Vol. 1, →ISBN. From the entry salami slicing
  • There are, however, at least three practical considerations that suggest that splitting the task into two steps may be expedient.2003, Vladimir Klyuev, The Distributional Consequences of Real Exchange Rate Adjustment. From the entry megamodel
  • Later Saljūq sulṭāns were on occasion obliged to resort to desperate expedients in an attempt to control over-mighty muqṭaʿs.1988, David Morgan, Medieval Persia 1040–1797 (A History of the Near East), London; New York, N.Y.: Longman, →ISBN, page 38. From the entry sulṭān
  • NuLab will give an Eartha Kitt for as long as it is politically expedient to do so, and not a moment longer.2005 March 13, Mad Mac [username], “Re: Borders rail innk may be going ahead”, in uk.railway (Usenet). From the entry Eartha Kitt
  • The single-axis approach to the design of the servosystem is expedient, but it ignores the effect of mechanical and electromechanical interaxis coupling.1959, NASA Technical Note - Issues 2981-2990, page 26. From the entry interaxis
  • This was his last resort, an expedient which he fell back upon only in great extremity, as it invariably made him sick to his stomach.1914, Frank Norris, chapter 17, in Vandover and the Brute. From the entry sick to one's stomach
  • Not so circumscribed in expedient for the reduction of surplus wealth were those lairds of the lariat who had womenfolk to their name.c. 1900, O. Henry, A Call Loan. From the entry lariat
  • The fact that this political approach is thought expedient in communist party tactics does not prove that party members personalitywise are intolerant of ambiguities in general.1970, Christian Bay, The structure of freedom, page 210. From the entry personalitywise
  • Much valuable timber was destroyed in that manner, but, as no markets existed for timber, it was the most expedient method of ridding the land of trees.1940 February, W. A. Davis, E. F. Goldston, “Agricultural History and Statistics”, in Soil Survey of Stokes County, North Carolina (Series…. From the entry logrolling
  • It is being used in their context as an intermediate expedient to clarify the group's own thinking, with the intention of jettisoning all such high-falutin' verbiage in the final documentation.2009 October, Cary Karp, quoting Debbie Garside, “Subject: RE: language question re: IDNs”, in online mailing list. From the entry synoglyph

Meaning of expedient

  1. adjective Suitable to effect some desired end or the purpose intended.
  2. adjective Affording short-term benefit, often at the expense of the long-term.
  3. adjective Governed by self-interest, often short-term self-interest.

Full definition of expedient

Questions about expedient in a sentence

How do you use expedient in a sentence?
Expedient is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Most people, faced with a decision, will choose the most expedient option.”
What is a short sentence with expedient?
“In such conditions a relatively inexpensive expedient is the flat store.”
What does expedient mean?
Expedient means suitable to effect some desired end or the purpose intended.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: expedient (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use expedient in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/expedient. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.