different between useful vs impactful

English

Etymology

From use +? -ful.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ju?sf?l/

Adjective

useful (comparative usefuller or more useful, superlative usefullest or most useful)

1. Having a practical or beneficial use.

   Synonyms: noteful, serviceable, utilitarian, utile

   Antonyms: unuseful, useless, harmful

Usage notes

• Prepositions: useful is used in useful for <purpose>, useful for <person> and useful to <person>. The words useful to are also found in constructions such as It is useful to do, in which to marks an infinitive rather than being a preposition.

Derived terms

Translations

English

Etymology

From impact +? -ful

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??mpæktf?l/, /?m?pæktf?l/

Adjective

impactful (comparative more impactful, superlative most impactful)

1. Having impact. [from c. 1940]
   • 1969, W. James Popham, "Curriculum Materials," Review of Educational Research, vol. 39, no. 3, p. 321:

     It is strongly recommended that in the future such investigations not be reported in the literature unless they are designed to test the effects of some hopefully impactful treatment variation.

   • 1982, S. E. Taylor and S. C. Thompson, "Stalking the Elusive 'Vividness' Effect," Psychological Bulletin, vol. 89, no. 2, p. 155:

     Everyone knows that vividly presented information is impactful and persuasive.

   • 2001, A. Mukherjee and W. D. Hoyer, "The Effect of Novel Attributes on Product Evaluation," The Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 28, no. 3, p. 463:

     A dominant finding in psychology and consumer behavior has been that negative information is more impactful than positive information.

Usage notes

• Proscribed by some authorities, who recommend influential or effective instead. Alternatively, one may rephrase to have an impact or have a strong impact. However, many usages can be found, particularly in business and education as well as in journalism and academic writing.
• Usage is more common in the US.

Synonyms

• effectual, impactive, consequential, significant, eventful

Antonyms

• impactless

Derived terms

• impactfully
• impactfulness

Translations

References

• impactful at OneLook Dictionary Search
• impactful, having impact, impactive at Google Ngram Viewer