imperative

• imp., imper. (abbreviation, grammar)

Borrowed from Latin imperātīvus.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɛɹ.ə.tɪv/

imperative (comparative more imperative, superlative most imperative)

1. Essential; crucial; extremely important.

   It is imperative that you come here right now.

2. (grammar) Of, or relating to the imperative mood.
3. (computing theory) Having a semantics that incorporates mutable variables.
4. Expressing a command; authoritatively or absolutely directive.

   imperative orders

   • Bishop Hall

     The suits of kings are imperative.

imperative (countable and uncountable, plural imperatives)

1. (uncountable, grammar) The grammatical mood expressing an order (see jussive). In English, the imperative form of a verb is the same as that of the bare infinitive.

   The verbs in sentences like "Do it!" and "Say what you like!" are in the imperative.

2. (countable, grammar) A verb in imperative mood.
3. (countable) An essential action, a must: something which is imperative.

   Visiting Berlin is an imperative.

   • 2014 March 1, Rupert Christiansen, “English translations rarely sing”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), page R19:

     Anything grandiose or historically based tends to sound flat and banal when it reaches English, partly because translators get stuck between contradictory imperatives: juggling fidelity to the original sense with what is vocally viable, they tend to resort to a genteel fustian which lacks either poetic resonance or demotic realism, adding to a sense of artificiality rather than enhancing credibility.

• (grammatical mood) imperative mood
• required

• (in grammar): assertoric, interrogative

imperative f pl

1. Feminine plural of adjective imperativo.

• riempivate

• inperātīvē

From imperātīvus (“commanded”), from imperō (“command, order”), from im- (form of in) + parō (“prepare, arrange; intend”).

imperātīvē (not comparable)

1. In an imperative manner, imperatively.

• imperative in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• imperative in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette