0 something that you do because it will help you to achieve something else:
I didn't particularly like the job - it was just a means to an end.
Attrition was not an end in itself, but a means to an end.
There is a tendency for technical solutions to flexibility to move from being a means to an end, to ends in themselves.
The emphasis upon the change of ownership, without reference to post-privatisation performance, thus turns privatisation from a means to an end in itself.
It will become increasingly routine as a means to an end of data exploration.
Each child has to be treated as a unique individual, never as a means to an end.
It should be remembered that industrial action is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end.
Several artists stressed that commercial success should not be an end in itself, but only a means to an end.
From the point of view of the federal government, this volunteer work is a means to an end, not an activity in its own right.