preferable

Avoid if possible; the phrase “[x] was caught lying and sheepishly acknowledged it” is preferable.

Some good strains have a mixture of silky coat with the hard, and this is preferable to a woolly coat.

We deliberate on or upon, also about or concerning a matter: the first two are preferable.

They compare two modes of action, or two substances, and judge the one to be preferable to the other, and accordingly select it.

The news was well received, for anything was preferable to the prison life they were leading in Belfort.

But "egotism, in the sense of 'self-worship,' is preferable to egoism, since egoism also designates a system of philosophy."