expeditious - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English expedycius (“useful, fitting”), from Latin expedītus (“disengaged, ready, convenient, prompt; unfettered, unencumbered”), past participle of expediō.[1]

• IPA(key): /ɛkspɪˈdɪʃəs/

expeditious (comparative more expeditious, superlative most expeditious)

1. Fast, prompt, speedy. [from 1590s][1]
   Near-synonym: expedited
   • 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter II, in Emma: […], volume III, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, page 15:
     Our coachman and horses are so extremely expeditious!—I believe we drive faster than anybody.
   • 2025 December 6, “US security strategy urges ‘resistance’ to Europe and shrugs off Russian threat”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1:
     An “expeditious cessation of hostilities” is essential to “stabilise European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war and re-establish strategic stability with Russia”, the document says.
2. (of a process or thing) Completed or done with efficiency and speed; facilitating speed.
   Near-synonym: expedited
   • 1816, [Walter Scott], chapter VII, in The Antiquary. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 153:
     As they thus pressed forward, longing doubtless to exchange the easy curving line, which the sinuosities of the bay compelled them to adopt, for a straiter and more expeditious path, though less conformable to the line of beauty, Sir Arthur observed a human figure on the beach advancing to meet them.
   • 1844 January–December, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, “I return to Ireland, and exhibit my splendour and generosity in that kingdom”, in “The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. [The Luck of Barry Lyndon.]”, in Miscellanies: Prose and Verse, volume III, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1856, →OCLC, page 199:
     Now, there was a sort of rough-and-ready law in Ireland in those days which was of great convenience to persons desirous of expeditious justice […].

• expeditiousness

• unexpeditious

• expedient (not to be confused in modern usage)

• expedite

• expedition

• expeditionary

• expeditiously (adverb)

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “expeditious (adj.)”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.