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Important vs Impact - What's the difference?

important | impact |

As an adjective important

is having relevant and crucial value.

As a noun impact is

the striking of one body against another; collision.

As a verb impact is

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

important

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Having relevant and crucial value.
  • :
  • *
  • *:Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=20 citation , passage=The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen.
  • *1988, (Robert Ferro), Second Son :
  • *:For this was the most important thing, that when a person felt strongly about an issue in life, it mustn’t be ignored by others; for if it was, everything subsequent to it would turn out badly, even though there should seem to be no direct connection.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katrina G. Claw
  • , title= Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm , volume=101, issue=3, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.}}

    Synonyms

    * (l) * See also

    Antonyms

    * unimportant * negligible

    Derived terms

    * importantly, importantness, unimportant, VIP

    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