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Impertinent vs Peremptory - What's the difference?

impertinent | peremptory |

As adjectives the difference between impertinent and peremptory

is that impertinent is insolent, ill-mannered while peremptory is (legal) precluding debate or expostulation; not admitting of question or appeal; positive; absolute; decisive; conclusive; final.

As a noun impertinent

is an impertinent individual.

impertinent

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • insolent, ill-mannered
  • * Tillotson
    • things that are impertinent to us
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • How impertinent that grief was which served no end!
  • irrelevant (opposite of pertinent)

    • Usage notes

    Although, historically, definition 2 was the original (derived from the French below) usage; meaning gradually changed to definition 1. More recently general usage has come to, once again, incorporate definition 2. As many older speakers will consider definition 2 incorrect, avoiding the word altogether may be advisable. The construction "not pertinent" is one possible alternative.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An impertinent individual.
  • * (Maria Edgeworth)
    • comfortably recessed from curious impertinents
    ----

    peremptory

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (legal) Precluding debate or expostulation; not admitting of question or appeal; positive; absolute; decisive; conclusive; final.
  • * 1596 , Francis Bacon, Maxims of the Law , II:
    • there is no reason but if any of the outlawries be indeed without error, but it should be a peremptory plea to the person in a writ of error, as well as in any other action.
  • Positive in opinion or judgment; absolutely certain, overconfident, unwilling to hear any debate or argument (especially in a pejorative sense); dogmatic.
  • * 2003 , Andrew Marr, The Guardian , 6 Jan 03:
    • He marched under a placard reading "End Bossiness Now" but decided it was a little too peremptory , not quite British, so changed the slogan on subsequent badges, to "End Bossiness Soon."
  • (obsolete) Firmly determined, resolute; obstinate, stubborn.
  • Accepting no refusal or disagreement; imperious, dictatorial.
  • *
    • less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
  • * 1999 , Anthony Howard, The Guardian , 2 Jan 99:
    • Though today (surveying that yellowing document) I shudder at the peremptory tone of the instructions I gave, Alastair - in that same volume in which I get chastised for my coverage of the Macmillan rally - was generous enough to remark that my memorandum became 'an office classic'.

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