expendable

comparative more expendable · superlative most expendable

1. Able to be expended; not inexhaustible.

   Oil and other expendable resources are frequently the subject of military disputes.

   Synonyms: exhaustible, finite, limited

2. Designed for a single use; not reusable.

   The anti-aircraft rocket is fired from an expendable launch platform.

   Synonyms: dispensable, disposable, throwaway

3. Not essential or mandatory in order to achieve a goal.

   The research department was deemed expendable, and its funding was not renewed.

   Synonyms: adjunct, dispensable, redundant, superfluous

4. Regarded as not worth preserving or saving; able to be sacrificed.

   In the internecine rivalries of large corporations, whole departments may become expendable in the execution of one executive's power play.

   2 more examples

   He was expendable, like commodities past their use.

   1997, G. Cajetan Luna, Youths Living with HIV: Self-Evident Truths, page 10

   The Taunton-Minehead line (now managed by the West Somerset Railway) was considered much more expendable.

   2020 April 8, Howard Johnston, “East-ended? When the ECML was at risk”, in Rail, page 69

   Synonyms: collateral, inconsiderable, sacrificable, worthless

plural expendables

1. An expendable person or object; usually used in the plural.

   Private Johnson was afraid the Lieutenant considered him an expendable, since he was always picked as point man.