expendable

UK/ɪkˈspɛndəbəl/US/ɪkˈspɛndəbəl/

adjectiveC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,837 of 15,258neutral

Expendable means able to be given up or used up without great loss. Expendable supplies, treated as expendable, an expendable asset.

Applied to things it is neutral logistics. Applied to people it is one of the coldest words there is, and it is nearly always used to complain about how somebody was treated rather than to describe anybody honestly.

Definitions of expendable

1adjectiveexpendableAble to be given up or used up without great loss.C1
“When money got tight, the company decided the staff parties were expendable.”

expendable is a quality.

Where it comes from

From expend + -able.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

expendable in the wild

During the Space Race, all launch vehicles were expendable.
Expendable launch system
Furthermore, an ELV can use its entire fuel supply to accelerate its payload, offering greater payloads, and many RLVs operate expendable configurations for some launches.
Expendable launch system
The H-IIB (H2B) was a Japanese expendable launch system jointly developed by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
H-IIB
The Safir was the first Iranian expendable launch vehicle able to place a satellite in orbit.
Safir (rocket)
The Unha is a North Korean expendable carrier rocket, which partially utilizes the same delivery system as the Taepodong-2 orbital launch system.
Unha

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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