1. imperative - Noun
2. imperative - Adjective
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 dictionaryAdapt 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