expeditious

English[edit]

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

expeditious (comparative more expeditious, superlative most expeditious)

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.
(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 […].

Fast, prompt, speedy