Skip to main content
expendability

expendability

1 7.7
The idea that something can be used up or replaced and is not needed
  • noun
  • /ɪkˌspɛndəˈbɪlɪti/
translation icon : disponibilidad
  • [Mike] Oh fuck you and your expendability, man.

Examples

  • During the crisis, the management demonstrated their view on employee expendability by laying off workers without notice.

  • Our own expendability, that's all you can ever really count on in this life.

  • The way in which, as Broglio observes, "animal death reminds the worker of his own expendability" is the main theme of "The Mole Catcher." 30

    Academic text (2017)
  • Thus, their motivation to inculcate a worthless mentality within the population of "expendability and replaceability."

    Blog text (16)
  • The dialectics of expendability and indispensability have been radicalized in the sense that today many people are no longer indispensable specimens.

    Academic text (2010)
  • It was followed by eight issues from 1963 to 1970, which developed themes that embraced issues of expendability and consumerism at the broadest scale.

    Academic text (2003)
  • And if a certain kind of immortality can emerge from the transient flow of commodities/images, then Pop art, the very concept of which was an Independent Group invention, appeals more to such a transcendence than to the flow, regardless of many of its pronouncements on expendability.

    Academic text (2000)
  • As Bennett and Tyrrell indicate, the pharmakos pattern, in its ritualistic expression, emphasizes the expendability of the lowly unwilling victims while suppressing their willingness to suffer for the community.

    Academic text (1993)
  • In a competitive job market, employees often feel a sense of expendability, as newer talents can easily take their place.

  • Many workers fear their expendability in companies that prioritize profits over employee welfare.

Synonyms

dispensableness
vsexpendability
9.9

The fact that something is not needed

also involves being used up or taken over by something else
dispensability
vsexpendability
8.7

Something that is not needed or necessary

also covers being used up or succeeded by something else
disposability
vsexpendability
6.4

Being easily replaced and treated as unimportant

focuses on not being essential and may include being used up or taken over
replaceability
vsexpendability
6.7

How easy it is to swap one thing for another

also means not essential and may involve being used up
exhaustibility
vsexpendability
7.8

How much a resource can be used before it is gone

also includes being able to be taken over or seen as not necessary

Antonyms

Being necessary for something to work or succeed

How Expendable

expendability
1 7.7
necessity
274 2.0

Surface Forms

expendability singular

Morphology

expendability = expendable (transparent) = expend + able + ity

Formed by adding a standard noun-forming suffix '-ity' to 'expendable', which itself is transparently 'expend' + '-able'.

Etymology

Expendability comes from the verb expend, which means 'to use up' and shares its root with spend and expense, words about using or paying out things. So, expendability is the idea that something can be used up, replaced, or seen as not essential.