different between important vs impact

English

Etymology

From Middle English important, from Medieval Latin important-, import?ns.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?m?p??t?nt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?m?p??t?nt/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?m?po(?)?t?nt/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?m?po?t?nt/

Adjective

important (comparative more important, superlative most important)

1. Having relevant and crucial value.
   • 1988, Robert Ferro, Second Son:

     For this was the most important thing, that when a person felt strongly about an issue in life, it mustn’t be ignored by others; for if it was, everything subsequent to it would turn out badly, even though there should seem to be no direct connection.
2. (obsolete) Pompous; self-important.

Synonyms

• significant
• weighty
• See also Thesaurus:important

Antonyms

• negligible
• ignorable
• petty
• slight
• unimportant

Derived terms

• importantly, importantness, unimportant, VIP

Related terms

• import
• importance

Translations

Catalan

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Valencian) IPA^(key): /im.po??tant/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /im.pur?tan/

Adjective

important (masculine and feminine plural importants)

1. important

Derived terms

• importantment

Related terms

• importància

Further reading

• “important” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “important” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “important” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “important” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??.p??.t??/

Adjective

important (feminine singular importante, masculine plural importants, feminine plural importantes)

1. important

2. significant

Derived terms

• importance

Verb

important

1. present participle of importer

Further reading

• “important” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Latin

Verb

important

1. third-person plural present active indicative of import?

Occitan

Pronunciation

Adjective

important m (feminine singular importanta, masculine plural importants, feminine plural importantas)

1. important

Related terms

• importància

Romanian

Etymology

From French important.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [im.por?tant]

Adjective

important m or n (feminine singular important?, masculine plural importan?i, feminine and neuter plural importante)

1. important

Declension

Related terms

• importan??

English

Etymology

From Latin imp?ctus, perfect passive participle of imping? (“dash against, impinge”).

Pronunciation

• (noun): enPR: im?p?kt, IPA^(key): /??mpækt/
• (verb): enPR: im-p?kt?, IPA^(key): /?m?pækt/
• • Rhymes: -ækt

Noun

impact (countable and uncountable, plural impacts)

1. The striking of one body against another; collision.
2. The force or energy of a collision of two objects.

3. (chiefly medicine) A forced impinging.

4. A significant or strong influence; an effect.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often applied to "impact": social, political, physical, positive, negative, good, bad, beneficial, harmful, significant, great, important, strong, big, small, real, huge, likely, actual, potential, devastating, disastrous, true, primary.
• The adposition generally used with "impact" is "on" (such as in last example in section above)
• There are English speakers who are so averse to the verb sense that they have become hypersensitive to the use of the figurative noun sense, with a low threshold for labeling such use as overuse (cliché). In defensive editing, the solution is to replace the figurative noun sense with effect and the verb sense with affect, which nearly always produces an acceptable result. (Rarely, a phrase such as "the impact of late effects" is better stetted to avoid "the effect of [...] effects".)

Derived terms

Related terms

• impinge

Translations

Verb

impact (third-person singular simple present impacts, present participle impacting, simple past and past participle impacted)

1. (transitive) To collide or strike, the act of impinging.

   When the hammer impacts the nail, it bends.

2. (transitive) To compress; to compact; to press into something or pack together.

   The footprints of birds do not impact the soil in the way those of dinosaurs do.

3. (transitive, proscribed) To influence; to affect; to have an impact on.

   I can make the changes, but it will impact the schedule.

4. (transitive, rare) To stamp or impress onto something.

   Ideas impacted on the mind.

Usage notes

Some authorities object to the verb sense of impact meaning "to influence; to affect; to have an impact on". Although most verbification instances in English draw no prescriptive attention, a few do, including this one. To avoid annoying those readers who care, one can replace the verb sense with affect, which nearly always produces an acceptable result. See also the usage note for the noun sense.

Derived terms

• impaction
• impactor

Translations

French

Etymology

From Latin, see above.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??.pakt/

Noun

impact m (plural impacts)

1. (literally or figuratively) impact

Further reading

• “impact” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Romanian

Etymology

From French impact, from Latin impactus.

Noun

impact n (plural impacturi)

1. impact

Declension