different between expedient vs adequate

English

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”) + p?s (“foot, hoof”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?spi?di.?nt/

Adjective

expedient (comparative more expedient, superlative most expedient)

1. Suitable to effect some desired end or the purpose intended.
   • a. 1863, Richard Whately, Thoughts and Apophthegms

     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.

2. Affording short-term benefit, often at the expense of the long-term.
3. Governed by self-interest, often short-term self-interest.
4. (obsolete) Expeditious, quick, rapid.
   • a 1623, Shakespeare, King John, Act II, scene i, lines 57–61:

     the adverse winds / Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time / To land his legions all as soon as I; / His marches are expedient to this town / His forces strong, his soldiers confident.

Synonyms

• advisable, desirable, judicious, politic, prudent, tactical, wise

Related terms

Translations

Noun

expedient (plural expedients)

1. A method or means for achieving a particular result, especially when direct or efficient; a resource.
   • 1906, O. Henry, The Green Door:

     He would never let her know that he was aware of the strange expedient to which she had been driven by her great distress.

   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, page 709:

     Depressingly, [...] the expedient of importing African slaves was in part meant to protect the native American population from exploitation.

Translations

Further reading

• expedient in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• expedient in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• expedient at OneLook Dictionary Search
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “expedient”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin expedi?ns.

Adjective

expedient (masculine and feminine plural expedients)

1. expedient, convenient

Noun

expedient m (plural expedients)

1. file, record, dossier

Derived terms

• expedientar

Further reading

• “expedient” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Latin

Verb

expedient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of expedi?

Romanian

Etymology

From French expédient.

Noun

expedient n (plural expediente)

1. expedient

Declension

English

Alternative forms

• adæquate (obsolete)

Etymology

Latin adaequatus, past participle of adaequare (“to make equal to”); ad + aequare (“to make equal”), aequus (“equal”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

• (US) IPA^(key): /?æd.?.kw?t/, (proscribed) /?æ.d?.k?t/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?æd.?.kw?t/

Verb

• IPA^(key): /?æd.??kwe?t/

Adjective

adequate (comparative more adequate, superlative most adequate)

1. Equal to or fulfilling some requirement.

   Synonyms: acceptable, correspondent, proportionate, satisfactory, sufficient

   Antonym: inadequate

   • 1673, Hannah Woolley, The Gentlewomans Companion, London: Dorman Newman, “Of Habit, and the neatness and property thereof,” p. 61,^[1]

     Proportion therefore your Clothes to your bodies, and let them be proper for your persons. […] Agreeableness […] ought to be exact, and adequate both to age, person and condition, avoiding extremities on both sides, being neither too much out, nor in the fashions.

   • 1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 31,^[2]

     Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her comfortable maintenance […]

   • 1853, Thomas De Quincey, Autobiographic Sketches in Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers, Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, “Dublin,” p. 254,^[3]

     […] in those days, Ireland had no adequate champion; the Hoods and the Grattans were not up to the mark.

   • 1903, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Empty House” in The Return of Sherlock Holmes,^[4]

     All day as I drove upon my round I turned over the case in my mind, and found no explanation which appeared to me to be adequate.

   • 2009, J. M. Coetzee, Summertime, New York: Viking, p. 212,^[5]

     John was a perfectly adequate academic. A perfectly adequate academic but not a notable teacher.

Related terms

• adequacy
• adequation
• adequative

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

adequate (third-person singular simple present adequates, present participle adequating, simple past and past participle adequated)

1. (obsolete) To equalize; to make adequate.
   • 1622, Martin Fotherby, Atheomastix; clearing foure truthes, against atheists and infidels, London, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 208,^[6]

     Let me giue yet one instance more, of a truly intellectuall obiect, exactly adequated and proportioned vnto the intellectuall appetite.

2. (obsolete) To equal.
   • 1635, Robert Shelford, Theologia Amantis Deum, or A Treatise of the Divine Attributes in Five Pious and Learned Discourses, Cambridge, p. 227,^[7]

     […] though it be an impossibilitie for any creature to adequate God in his eternitie, yet he hath ordained all his sonnes in Christ to partake of it by living with him eternally.

Translations

Anagrams

• æquated

Italian

Verb

adequate

1. second-person plural present indicative of adequare
2. second-person plural imperative of adequare

Participle

adequate

1. feminine plural of the past participle of adequare