imperative
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
See also: impérative
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin imperātīvus.
Pronunciation
Adjective
imperative (comparative more imperative, superlative most imperative)
- Essential; crucial; extremely important.
- That you come here right now is imperative.
- 1941 May, “Jubilee of the City Tube”, in Railway Magazine, page 224:
- Meantime, alterations at King William Street had become imperative, and by December 22, 1895, the station had been remodelled, as at Stockwell, to provide an island platform with lines each side, and a scissors crossing.
- 2019, Con Man Games, SmashGames, quoting Felix, Kindergarten 2, SmashGames:
- Give this document to Ozzy. It's imperative that he reads and understands it. Got it?
- (grammar) Of, or relating to the imperative mood.
- (computing theory) Having semantics that incorporates mutable variables.
- Antonym: functional
- Expressing a command; authoritatively or absolutely directive.
- imperative orders
- 1612–1626, [Joseph Hall], “(please specify the page)”, in [Contemplations vpon the Principall Passages of the Holy Storie], volumes (please specify |volume=II, V, or VI), London, →OCLC:
- The suits of kings are imperative.
Derived terms
Translations
essential
|
grammar: of, or relating to the imperative mood
|
computing: having semantics that incorporates mutable variables
|
authoritatively or absolutely directive
|
Noun
imperative (countable and uncountable, plural imperatives)
- (uncountable, grammar) 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.
- Synonym: imperative mood
- Coordinate terms: assertoric, interrogative
- The verbs in sentences like "Do it!" and "Say what you like!" are in the imperative.
- (countable, grammar) A verb in imperative mood.
- (countable) An essential action, a must: something which is imperative.
- Visiting Berlin is an imperative.
- 2014 March 1, Rupert Christiansen, “English translations rarely sing”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), page R19:
- Anything grandiose or historically based tends to sound flat and banal when it reaches English, partly because translators get stuck between contradictory imperatives: juggling fidelity to the original sense with what is vocally viable, they tend to resort to a genteel fustian which lacks either poetic resonance or demotic realism, adding to a sense of artificiality rather than enhancing credibility.
- 2020 December 2, Industry Insider, “The costs of cutting carbon”, in Rail, page 76:
- The new imperative for investment is the Government's objective to secure carbon-neutral transport emissions by 2040.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
imperative mood — see imperative mood
verb in imperative
|
essential action
|
See also
References
- “imperative”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Italian
Adjective
imperative f pl
Anagrams
Latin
Alternative forms
Etymology
From imperātīvus (“commanded”), from imperō (“command, order”), from im- (form of in) + parō (“prepare, arrange; intend”).
Adverb
imperātīvē (not comparable)
- In an imperative manner, imperatively.
Related terms
References
- “imperative”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- imperative in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Romanian
Pronunciation
Noun
imperative n pl
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *per-
- English terms borrowed from Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 4-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- en:Grammar
- en:Theory of computing
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Directives
- Italian non-lemma forms
- Italian adjective forms
- Latin terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- Latin terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *per- (fare)
- Latin lemmas
- Latin adverbs
- Latin uncomparable adverbs
- Romanian terms with IPA pronunciation
- Romanian non-lemma forms
- Romanian noun forms