expedient

1. 1.

   serving to promote your interest

   “was merciful only when mercy was expedient”

   Antonymsinexpedient

   Similaradvantageousopportunistcarpetbag
2. 2.

   appropriate to a purpose; practical

   “in the circumstances it was expedient to express loyalty”

   Similarpolitic

1. 1.

   a means to an end; not necessarily a principled or ethical one

   Broadermeans

   Narrowermakeshiftcrutchimprovisationpis aller

Other forms of expedient

plural

expedients·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about expedient

What does expedient mean?

expedient means "serving to promote your interest". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in expedient?

expedient has 4 syllables: ex-pe-di-ent. The stress falls on "pe". In IPA it is /ɪkˈspidiənt/.

What is the opposite of expedient?

The recorded antonyms are inexpedient.

Is expedient a common word?

expedient is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.