convenience

Pluralconveniences (some meanings)

Formsconveniences, conveniencing, convenienced

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The quality of being easy to use, reach, or arrange, saving time and effort.

   Customers love the convenience of ordering groceries from their phones.

   We chose the apartment for its convenience to the subway.

   Similarease, accessibility, handiness, proximity, practicality

   Oppositeinconvenience, difficulty

   Note

   The root idea is fitting together. Latin convenientia comes from convenire, "to come together, suit," which also gave English the doublet convenance. Shakespeare's Hamlet still leans on that sense of fitness: "what convenience both of time and means / May fit us." Cowper shows the modern turn, ranking comfort just after need: "Necessity invented stools, / Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs." Amenity is a near synonym.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   Any object that makes life easier; a helpful, labor-saving item.

   The dishwasher is a convenience I would hate to give up.

   The mountain cabin lacks modern conveniences like running water and Wi-Fi.

   Similaramenity, comfort, facility, luxury

   Note

   Here the word names things rather than a quality, so it counts and readily goes plural. Swift lists spectacles "and several other little conveniences," and Norman Lindsay describes makeshift cupboards as conveniences. The phrase every convenience is what David Byrne's building boasts of in "Don't Worry About the Government" (1977). Unlike the quality of ease, this sense takes a or a number: a convenience, a few conveniences.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A time that suits a person's needs or schedule; a suitable moment.

   Please sign and return the documents at your earliest convenience.

   The technician can stop by at your convenience any day this week.

   Similaropportunity

4. 4
   nounBritishcountableabbreviationellipsis

   Ellipsis of public convenience (“a public lavatory”).

   He nipped into the convenience on the seafront before boarding the coach.

   The council plans to refurbish the Victorian convenience near the pier.

   Note

   A clipped form, chiefly British. Drop public from public convenience and what remains still means a lavatory open to anyone. The setting does the work, which is why it sits so easily beside places like the seafront or the pier. It counts like any noun: a convenience, the conveniences. The plural can also mean helpful household items, and only context tells the two apart.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To make something convenient; to arrange or adjust it to suit someone's needs.

   The airline changed its boarding process to convenience families with small children.

   The clinic conveniences patients by offering evening appointments.

   Similaraccommodate, suit, help, serve

   Oppositeinconvenience

   Note

   The verb is built straight from the noun and inflects regularly: convenienced, conveniencing. Its object is usually the people being suited, as in arranging times "to convenience as many people as possible." Its mirror image is inconvenience, which takes the same construction: you inconvenience a person, and you convenience one.

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