Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Expressing a command or plea; peremptory: requests that grew more and more imperative.
- adj. Having the power or authority to command or control.
- adj. Grammar Of, relating to, or constituting the mood that expresses a command or request.
- adj. Impossible to deter or evade; pressing: imperative needs. See Synonyms at urgent.
- n. A command; an order.
- n. An obligation; a duty: social imperatives.
- n. A rule, principle, or instinct that compels a certain behavior: a people driven to aggression by territorial imperatives.
- n. Grammar The imperative mood.
- n. Grammar A verb form of the imperative mood.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Expressing command; containing positive command; peremptory; absolute: as, imperative orders.
- Not to be avoided or evaded; that must be attended to or performed; obligatory; binding: as, an imperative duty or necessity.
- n. In grammar, a mode or verbal form which expresses command, entreaty, advice, or exhortation.
- n. In philosophy, a deliverance of conscience; a monition of the moral sense.
Wiktionary
- n. The grammatical mood expressing an order (see jussive). In English, the imperative form of a verb is the same as that of the bare infinitive.
- n. A verb in imperative mood.
- n. An essential action, a must: something which is imperative.
- adj. essential
- adj. Having a semantics that incorporates mutable variables.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Expressive of command; containing positive command; authoritatively or absolutely directive; commanding; authoritative.
- adj. Not to be avoided or evaded; obligatory; binding; compulsory.
- adj. Expressive of commund, entreaty, advice, or exhortation.
- n. The imperative mood; also, a verb in the imperative mood.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. relating to verbs in the imperative mood
- n. some duty that is essential and urgent
- n. a mood that expresses an intention to influence the listener's behavior
- adj. requiring attention or action
Etymologies
- Middle English imperatif, relating to the imperative mood, from Old French, from Late Latin imperātīvus, from Latin imperātus, past participle of imperāre, to command; see emperor.
Examples
“In traditional tragedy, these are prescriptives; the imperative is absolute -- must, not should.”
“The long-term imperative is to slow and reverse the spiraling national debt.”
The Huffington Post: Richard Klass: The Real State of the Union
“The short-term imperative is to create jobs and grow the economy.”
The Huffington Post: Richard Klass: The Real State of the Union
“We have a long-term imperative to reconnect middle-class prosperity to the growing economy.”
USA Today: Wis. town reflects challenge for middle-class rebound
“If that seems a fast-fading dream, the pressing imperative is whether to keep faith with a man warmly serenaded by Leeds supporters but barracked by his new public.”
The Guardian: Gordon Strachan running out of time to revive Middlesbrough's fortunes
“If you are Christian, your moral imperative is to be Good in the face of Evil, to the point of martyrdom if need be.”
“If you are Christian, your moral imperative is to be Good in the face of Evil, to the point of martyrdom if need be.”
“While relieving government debt should be a medium and long term priority, addressing consumer debt is a short-term imperative.”
The Huffington Post: Rep. Hansen Clarke: Congress Is Obsessed With the Wrong Kind of Debt
“Their immediate imperative is coexistence within the fleet, but their interest is in victory over the hostile Cylon.”
“That ultimately this very moral imperative taken as absolute requires that we should treat all other moral imperatives as relative until, by a process of honest inquiry, we can decide, to our honest satisfaction, that, to the best of our knowledge, the action predicated by this imperative is indeed essentially capable of being universalised.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘imperative’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
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Programming Jargon
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continuation, data structure, node, closure, compiler, funarg problem, garbage collection, pointer, anonymous function, block, currying, first-class function and 63 more...
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