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important

adjective

Simple meaning

Having relevant and crucial value.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihmpawrtuhnt

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪmˈpɔɹtənt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Having relevant and crucial value; having import.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Having relevant and crucial value; having import.

Used this way, important is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It suits considered writing and prepared speech.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Serious and weighty
Usage feel
Formal and precise

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use important

  • “It is important to remember your keys before leaving the house.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

important roleimportant partimportant factorless importantparticularly importantimportant pointimportant aspectimportant question

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Word Relationships

Similar in idea, different in strength, tone or register.

Stronger

  • crucial , Something depends on it.
  • vital , Essential; cannot be done without.

More formal

More casual

  • key , Everyday shorthand for important.

Opposite

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • importantlyadverbDerived adverb

    In an important way or to an important degree.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • important personnounCompound term

    A person whose actions and opinions strongly influence the course of events.

  • most importantlyadverbCompound term

    Above and beyond all other consideration.

  • very important personnounCompound term

    An important or influential (and often overbearing) person.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: having relevant and crucial value

unimportant

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.