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influential

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Having the power to affect what people think or do.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihnflooehnchuhl

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪnfluˈɛntʃəl

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 or exercising influence or power

  2. Having or exerting influence.

noun

  1. A person who has influence

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Having or exercising influence or power

Used this way, influential is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

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

More ways to use influential

  • “An influential newspaper.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

highly influentialinfluential bookless influentialinfluential memberinfluential roleparticularly influentialinfluential groupinfluential position

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • influential personnounCompound term

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

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: having or exercising influence or power

powerful

Antonyms

Sense: having or exercising influence or power

uninfluentialRare

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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.