ex·i·gen·cy

(ĕk′sə-jən-sē, ĭg-zĭj′ən-)

n. pl. ex·i·gen·cies

1. A pressing or urgent situation: "We were caught in a wartime exigency that was beyond any humane, any rational, resistance" (John Kenneth Galbraith).

2. An urgent requirement; a pressing need: "distracted by the exigencies of running a business" (Richard Curtis).

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

exigency

(ˈɛksɪdʒənsɪ; ɪɡˈzɪdʒənsɪ) or

exigence

n, pl -gencies or -gences

1. the state of being exigent; urgency

2. (often plural) an urgent demand; pressing requirement

3. an emergency

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ex•i•gen•cy

(ˈɛk sɪ dʒən si, ɪgˈzɪdʒ ən-)

n., pl. -cies.

1. exigent state or character; urgency.

2. Usu., exigencies. the need, demand, or requirement intrinsic to a circumstance, condition, etc: the exigencies of city life.

3. a case or situation which demands prompt action or remedy; emergency or plight.

Often, ex′i•gence.

[1575–85; < Medieval Latin]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	exigency - a pressing or urgent situation; "the health-care exigency" crisis - an unstable situation of extreme danger or difficulty; "they went bankrupt during the economic crisis"
	2.	exigency - a sudden unforeseen crisis (usually involving danger) that requires immediate action; "he never knew what to do in an emergency" emergency, pinch crisis - a crucial stage or turning point in the course of something; "after the crisis the patient either dies or gets better"

exigency

exigence

noun

1. need, demand, requirement, necessity, constraint, wont The reduction was caused by the exigencies of a wartime economy.

2. urgency, pressure, difficulty, emergency, crisis, stress, distress, necessity, constraint, hardship, acuteness, demandingness, criticalness, imperativeness, needfulness, pressingness Financial exigency forced him to sell up his business.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

exigency

noun

1. The condition of being in need of immediate assistance:

distress, exigence, hot water, trouble.

2. A condition in which something necessary or desirable is required or wanted:

exigence, necessity, need.

3. A decisive point:

climacteric, crisis, crossroad (used in plural), exigence, head, juncture, pass, turning point, zero hour.

4. Something asked for or needed.Often used in plural:

demand, exigence, need, want.

Translations

exigence

necessit...

exigency

[ɪgˈzɪdʒənsɪ] N (= need) → exigencia f; (= emergency) → caso m de urgencia

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

exigency

[ˈɛksɪdʒənsi] n → exigence f
the exigencies of sth → les exigences de qch

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

exigency

[ˈɛksɪdʒənsɪ] n (frm) → esigenza

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

I had hired small lodgings, which I contrived to pay for out of a slender fund--the accumulated savings of my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to ask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denying economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to obviate the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency, to beg additional aid.

View in context

(59.) Coles, 437 F.3d at 371 (declaring police actions impermissibly created exigency after pretextual attempts at entrance failed).

It doesn't matter what they intended: the need for objective permissibility review of police-created exigencies in "knock and talk" investigations

AAUP has asked Tulane to disclose information about its finances, since the university declared financial exigency that cleared the way for faculty dismissals in December.

A storm of dismissals

In approaching the ideas of beginnings and endings from such a broad viewpoint, he deals with issues of attachment and avoidance, periods of "working-through" as "miniterminations," and the necessity of engaging in a phase of termination when patients end therapy whether through mutual consent of patient and analyst or because of external exigency.

Endings and Beginnings: On the Technique of Terminating Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

In the present context, the political work of the late '60s through '70s--now purged of exigency and brought out of the closet by the market--may be evaluated differently.

Out of the vox: Martha Rosler on art's activist potential

In science and nature writing, context takes on various names, including landscape, scene, setting, rhetorical situation, place, space, the land, milieu, exigency, environment, ecology, among others.

Science and Nature Writing [Special Issue II]

Other titles include "Music and the City," "From Polka to Punk: Growth of an Independent Recording Studio, 1934-1977," "Sound Sampling: An Aesthetic Challenge" and "Aesthetics Out of Exigency: Violin Vibrato and the Phonograph." Authors include composers, performers and professors of technology, musicology, anthropology and science.

Music and Technology in the Twentieth Century

If the author is sacrificed to language, it is argued, this is not to be conceived as the mere negation of authorial subjectivity; rather, the author, as a sacrificial figure, answers to the exigency of a figuration that would enable the a priori condition of signification in general to be exposed.

On the question of authorship in Maurice Blanchot

Not only does this make reading certain sections of the book a tedious process, but Hunt sometimes makes startling, overdrawn conclusions that seem unsupported by her evidence, (As an example, after a lengthy discussion about the practice of embryotomies, she writes "The exigency of detestable embryotomies, their loathsome aesthetics, the sacrificing of beautiful brown babies for the descendants of cannibals--such topoi were likely part of a missionary point of view at Yakusu" [p.

A Colonial Lexicon of birth ritual, medicalization, and mobility in the Congo. (Reviews)

We will probably see a lot of public exigency and national emergency buys, rightfully or wrongfully.

MILLER ON PROCUREMENT

Gallagher's highly interesting treatment of the potato in political/economic discourse is meant to "unsettle" the distinction between "base" and "superstructure," "bodily need" and "cultural exigency" (122).

Shakespeare after Theory & Practicing New Historicism

Remembering our military past and the lives it cost is an exigency which demands immediate action.

Valour betrayed? (federal government fails to adequately support National War Museum)