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Important vs Momentous - What's the difference?

important | momentous |

Momentous is a synonym of important.



As adjectives the difference between important and momentous

is that important is having relevant and crucial value while momentous is outstanding in importance, of great consequence.

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

    momentous

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Outstanding in importance, of great consequence.
  • * 1725 , , Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business :
  • The reason why I did not publish this book till the end of the last sessions of parliament was, because I did not care to interfere with more momentous affairs.
  • * 1831 , , Homeward Bound , ch. 31:
  • "It has been a momentous month, and I hope we shall all retain healthful recollections of it as long as we live."
  • * 1902 , , The End of the Tether , ch. 3:
  • What to the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically new view of existence.
  • * 2007 July 1, , " Inferior Design," New York Times (retrieved 19 Nov 2013):
  • Natural selection is arguably the most momentous idea ever to occur to a human mind, because it — alone as far as we know — explains the elegant illusion of design that pervades the living kingdoms and explains, in passing, us.

    Derived terms

    * momentously * momentousness