Word of the Day

Saturday July 18, 2009

exigency [EK-suh-jun-see; ig-ZIJ-un-see]

noun

The state of requiring urgent aid or action; pressing needs
The demands or requirements of a particular situation - usually used in the plural

Seventeen tenured faculty members filed in Greene County Common Pleas Court, alleging the university broke its contractual obligation with the faculty in its decision in June to declare financial exigency and close the school at the end of this academic year.

Anonymous, "Local headlines", Dayton Daily News, Mar 12, 2008
I do not drink tap water. In fact, in the last few years, I really can't recall drinking tap water (except in the most extreme exigency) at all.

Pamela Johnston, "Why I'm giving up bottled water for Lent", The Fresno Bee, Feb 23, 2009
Have you never marked the eyes of a man who has seen the world he has lived in: the eyes of the sea-captain, who has watched his life through the changes of the heavens; the eyes of the huntsman, nature's gossip and familiar; the eyes of the man of affairs, accustomed to command in moments of exigency?

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) The 28th President of the United States. On Being Human (1916)

Origin of the Word

Exigency, approximately 1581, derives from Late Latin exigentia "urgency," from Latin exigentem , from exigere "to demand".