Urgent

//ˈɝ.d͡ʒənt// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Requiring immediate attention.

    "An urgent appeal was sent out for assistance."

  2. 2
    Of people: insistent, solicitous.

    "The Egyptians were vrgent vpon the people that they might send them out of the land in haste."

Adjective
  1. 1
    compelling immediate action wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
imperativepressingclamantpressingactiveactuating

Example

More examples

"I canceled my appointment because of urgent business."

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French urgent (“pressing, impelling”), from Latin urgēns, from urgēre (“to press”), from Proto-Indo-European *werǵʰ- (“bind, squeeze”). Equivalent to urge + -ent. Related to German würgen (“to strangle”), Lithuanian ver̃žti (“to string, tighten, constrict”), Russian (poetic) отверза́ть (otverzátʹ, “to open”, literally “to untie”), Polish otwierać (“to open”)) and English worry, wring, wreak, wreck.

Related phrases

urgent care

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.