lexicow

exigency

/ˈeksɪdʒənsi//ɪɡˈzɪdʒənsi/·noun
I watch someone standing at ease, doing nothing in particular — and then a bell hammers, a red light throbs, and they're already gone, torn off the edge of the frame before the ringing even fades. No deciding, no weighing. The alarm sounded, and the running had started before the thinking could.
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Definition

An exigency is a demand made by circumstances — an urgent need that a situation forces on you, leaving little room to deliberate. It comes from Latin exigere, 'to demand or drive out', and that pressure is its essence: an exigency does not ask, it requires. The word is formal and often plural — 'the exigencies of war', 'the exigencies of the moment' — and it always points outward, to conditions beyond your control that suddenly dictate what must be done now rather than later.

Examples

  • In an exigency, even a normally cautious manager has to commit before all the facts are in.
  • The exigencies of the flood forced an imminent evacuation of the whole valley.
  • Wartime exigencies pushed the government to ration food within a matter of weeks.

Collocations

the exigencies of war·financial exigency·the exigencies of the moment·meet an exigency·in times of exigency

Synonyms

urgency·emergency·crisis·necessity·pressing demand

Word family

exigent (adjective)·exigencies (plural noun)

In TOEFL & IELTS

A formal, high-register noun for IELTS Writing on crisis, governance and decision-making, usually in the plural ('the exigencies of modern life'). Two stress patterns are both accepted — EK-si-jen-see and ig-ZIJ-en-see — so don't be thrown hearing either. Pairs almost ritually with 'of war' and 'of the moment'.