What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Impactful vs Impacting - What's the difference?

impactful | impacting |

As an adjective impactful

is having impact.

As a verb impacting is

present participle of lang=en.

impactful

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Having impact.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1950 , year_published=2008 , edition=Digitized , editor= , author= , title=Movies: A Psychological Study , chapter= citation , genre= , publisher=Free Press , isbn= , page=22 , passage=We might suppose that some of the most impactful heroines of current films would combine these two functions: that of the good-bad girl ... }}
  • * 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

    Derived terms

    * impactfully * impactfulness

    References

    * * Historical usage frequency at Google books

    impacting

    English

    Verb

    (head)