imperative

Speech parts

1. imperative - Noun

2. imperative - Adjective

Meaning

Expressive of command; containing positive command; authoritatively or absolutely directive; commanding; authoritative; as, imperative orders.

Not to be avoided or evaded; obligatory; binding; compulsory; as, an imperative duty or order.

Expressive of commund, entreaty, advice, or exhortation; as, the imperative mood.

The imperative mood; also, a verb in the imperative mood.

Source: Webster's dictionary

Synonyms

required important necessary essential requirement crucial vital mandatory pressing commanding authoritative urgent indispensable imperious compelling
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Antonyms

beseeching needless last free auxiliary WEFT
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Hypernyms

mode responsibility duty mood obligation modality

Phrases with the word

imperative need ethical imperative not imperative imperative mode absolute imperative

Examples

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative. H. G. Wells

The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous. Margot Fonteyn

It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content ... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion. René Daumal

The security of Israel is a moral imperative for all free peoples. Henry Kissinger

There is ... but one categorical imperative Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Immanuel Kant

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Close letter words and terms

imperated imperation imperatival imperative form imperative language imperative mode