Circumstance and response

exigency

EK-suh-juhn-see · noun

An urgent need or situation requiring immediate action.

An emergency response to a spill at an eggs agency, a mnemonic for exigency

Memory connection

Picture “eggs agency

Sirens sound at the eggs agency after a massive yolk spill. The team must act immediately before it reaches the street.

The sound cue helps you reach the scene; the action in the scene carries you from the scene to the definition.

Use it accurately

Meaning in context

The exigencies of wartime forced factories to change production rapidly.
Budget rules may be suspended when a genuine public-health exigency arises.

Exigency can name one urgent circumstance, while the plural exigencies often means the pressing demands created by a difficult situation.

Common patterns

  • the exigencies of
  • meet an exigency
  • military exigency

Quick check

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