English
expedient
Expedient comes from Latin expediens ‘expediting’, and goes back to expedire.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEexpedire‘to bring forward, to dispatch, to expedite’next step skipped: Latin expediō
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEexpediens‘expediting’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400expedient
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500same form
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1596same form
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEexpedire‘to bring forward, to dispatch, to expedite’next step skipped: Latin expediō
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEexpediens‘expediting’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400expedient
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500same form
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1596same form
Earliest quotation: c. 1596, William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Iohn: “the adverse winds / Whose leisure I have stay'd,…”
A compound of ex ‘out’ + pēs ‘foot, hoof’
Proto-Indo-European *h₁eǵʰs ‘out’
Proto-Italic *eks
Latin ex ‘out’
Proto-Indo-European *ped- ‘to walk, to step’
Proto-Indo-European *pṓds ‘foot’
Proto-Italic *pets ‘foot’
Latin pēs ‘foot, hoof’
Every English word from Latin expedire
Today it means
adj Suitable to effect some desired end or the purpose intended.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin expedire / expedient