different between appropriate vs expedient

English

Etymology

From Middle English appropriaten, borrowed from Latin appropriatus, past participle of approprio (“to make one's own”), from ad (“to”) + proprio (“to make one's own”), from proprius (“one's own, private”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p???.p?i?.?t/, /??p???.p?i?.?t/
• (US) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p?o?.p?i.?t/, /??p?o?.p?i.?t/

Verb

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??p???.p?i?.e?t/
• (US) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p?o?.p?i.e?t/

Adjective

appropriate (comparative more appropriate, superlative most appropriate)

1. Suitable or fit; proper.
   • 1798-1801, Beilby Porteus, Lecture XI delivered in the Parish Church of St. James, Westminster

     in its strict and appropriate meaning

   • 1710, Edward Stillingfleet, Several Conferences Between a Romish Priest, a Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England Concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome

     appropriate acts of divine worship
2. Suitable to the social situation or to social respect or social discreetness; socially correct; socially discreet; well-mannered; proper.
3. (obsolete) Set apart for a particular use or person; reserved.

Synonyms

• (suited for): apt, felicitous, fitting, suitable; see also Thesaurus:suitable

Antonyms

• (all senses): inappropriate

Derived terms

• appropriateness

Related terms

• proper
• property

Translations

Verb

appropriate (third-person singular simple present appropriates, present participle appropriating, simple past and past participle appropriated)

1. (transitive, archaic) To make suitable to; to suit.
   • 1790, Helen Maria Williams, Julia, Routledge 2016, p. 67:

     Under the towers were a number of gloomy subterraneous apartments with vaulted roofs, the use of which imagination was left to guess, and could only appropriate to punishment and horror.

   • 1802, William Paley, Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity

     Were we to take a portion of the skin, and contemplate its exquisite sensibility, so finely appropriated […] we should have no occasion to draw our argument, for the twentieth time, from the structure of the eye or the ear.

2. (transitive) To take to oneself; to claim or use, especially as by an exclusive right.
3. (transitive) To set apart for, or assign to, a particular person or use, especially in exclusion of all others; with to or for.
   • 2012, The Washington Post, David Nakamura and Tom Hamburger, "Put armed police in every school, NRA urges"

     “I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation,” LaPierre said.

4. (transitive, Britain, ecclesiastical, law) To annex (for example a benefice, to a spiritual corporation, as its property).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Blackstone to this entry?)

Synonyms

• (to take to oneself): help oneself, impropriate; see also Thesaurus:take or Thesaurus:steal
• (to set apart for): allocate, earmark; see also Thesaurus:set apart

Translations

Further reading

• appropriate at OneLook Dictionary Search
• appropriate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Italian

Adjective

appropriate f pl

1. feminine plural of appropriato

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