expedient

Etymology

From Middle English expedient, from Old French expedient, from Latin expediens (stem expedient-), present participle of expedire (“to bring forward, to dispatch, to expedite; impers. to be profitable, serviceable, advantageous, expedient”), from ex (“out”) + pēs (“foot, hoof”).

adj

1. Suitable to effect some desired end or the purpose intended.
   Most people, faced with a decision, will choose the most expedient option.
   Nothing but the right can ever be the expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a greater good to a less. a. 1863, Richard Whately, Thoughts and Apophthegms
2. Affording short-term benefit, often at the expense of the long-term.
   That's because the debate pits textbook economics — which argues that bailouts beget bad behavior begets more bailouts — against practical politics. 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 objectives 2013, Douglas B. Klusmeyer, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Immigration Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany
3. Governed by self-interest, often short-term self-interest.
   But the Expedient, in the sense in which it is opposed to the Right, generally means that which is expedient for the particular interest of the agent himself; as when a minister sacrifices the interests of his country to keep himself in place. 1861, John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
4. (obsolete) Expeditious, quick, rapid.

noun

1. A 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
   Depressingly, … the expedient of importing African slaves was in part meant to protect the native American population from exploitation. 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 709