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Impact vs Effective - What's the difference?

impact | effective |

As nouns the difference between impact and effective

is that impact is the striking of one body against another; collision while effective is a soldier fit for duty.

As a verb impact

is to compress; to compact; to press or pack together.

As an adjective effective is

having the power to produce a required effect or effects.

impact

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The striking of one body against another; collision.
  • The force or energy of a collision of two objects.
  • The hatchet cut the wood on impact .
  • (chiefly, medicine) A forced impinging.
  • His spine had an impingement; L4 and L5 made impact , which caused numbness in his leg.
  • A significant or strong influence; an effect.
  • His friend's opinion had an impact on his decision.
    Our choice of concrete will have a tremendous impact on the building's mechanical performance.

    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 ). 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

    * impactful * impactive * impact statement * Western impact

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To compress; to compact; to press or pack together.
  • If fecal incontinence is caused by impacted stool in the rectum, the impaction must be removed.
  • (proscribed) To influence; to affect; to have an on.
  • ''I can make the changes, but it will impact the schedule.
  • To collide or strike.
  • When the hammer impacts the nail, it bends.

    Usage notes

    Some authorities object to the verb sense of impact'', meaning "to influence; to affect; to have an impact on" or "to collide or strike". Although most .

    Derived terms

    * impactor

    effective

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having the power to produce a required effect or effects.
  • The pill is an effective method of birth control.
  • Producing a decided or decisive effect.
  • The president delivered an effective speech!
  • * Jeremy Taylor
  • Whosoever is an effective , real cause of doing his neighbour wrong, is criminal.
  • Efficient, serviceable, or operative, available for useful work.
  • How long does it take to make a bunch of civilians an effective military force?
    My effective income after taxes and child support is $500 a month.
    The effective radiated power is determined by multiplying the transmitter power output with the antenna gain.
    The effective voltage of an alternating current is 0.7 times its peak voltage.
  • Actually in effect.
  • The curfew is effective at midnight.
  • Having no negative coefficients.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (military) A soldier fit for duty.
  • *1876 , , Recollections of the Elkhorn Campaign :
  • *:The Army of the West reached Corinth sometime after the battle of Shiloh. We were 15,000 effectives , and brought Beauregard's effective force up to 45,000 men.
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