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.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Of, relating to, or being a pivot.

Being of crucial importance; central, key.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Joseph Stiglitz)

, volume=188, issue=26, page=19, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Globalisation is about taxes too , passage=It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. It is a tax system that is pivotal in creating the increasing inequality that marks most advanced countries today […].}}