Wiktionary

impact

English

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Etymology

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Attested since the 17th century, from Latin impāctus.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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impact (countable and uncountable, plural impacts)

  1. The striking of one body against another; collision.
  2. The force or energy of a collision of two objects.
    The hatchet cut the wood on impact.
  3. (chiefly medicine) A forced impinging.
    His spine had an impingement; L4 and L5 made impact, which caused numbness in his leg.
  4. (figurative, proscribed) A significant or strong influence or effect.
    His friend's opinion had an impact on his decision.
    Our choice of concrete will have a tremendous impact on the building's mechanical performance.
    • 2016, Jayson Lusk, Unnaturally Delicious, →ISBN, page 111:
      One way to reduce the environmental impact of meat eating is to make livestock more productive.

Usage notes

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  • The adposition generally used with "impact" is "on" (such as in last example in section above)
  • There are some who find the figurative noun sense problematic, with a low threshold for labeling such use as overuse (cliché). In defensive editing, the solution is to replace the figurative noun sense with effect and the verb sense with affect, which nearly always produces an acceptable result. (Rarely, a phrase such as "the impact of late effects" is better stetted to avoid "the effect of [...] effects".)

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Terms derived from impact (noun)
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Collocations

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Collocations
  • Adjectives often applied to "impact": social, political, physical, positive, negative, good, bad, beneficial, harmful, significant, great, important, strong, big, small, real, huge, likely, actual, potential, devastating, disastrous, true, primary.

Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

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impact (third-person singular simple present impacts, present participle impacting, simple past and past participle impacted)

  1. (transitive) To collide or strike, the act of impinging.
    When the hammer impacts the nail, it bends.
    • 2014 December 1, Mike Williams, “Microbullet hits confirm graphene’s strength”, in Rice University‎[1]:
      As a microbullet impacts the graphene, the diameter of the cone it creates – determined by later examination of the petals – provides a way to measure how much energy the graphene absorbs before breaking.
  2. (transitive) To compress; to compact; to press into something or pack together.
    The footprints of birds do not impact the soil in the way those of dinosaurs do.
  3. (transitive, figurative, proscribed) To significantly or strongly influence or affect; to have an impact on.
    I can make the changes, but it will impact the schedule.
  4. (transitive, rare) To stamp or impress onto something.
    Ideas impacted on the mind.

Usage notes

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Some authorities object to the verb sense of impact meaning "to significantly or strongly influence or affect; to have an impact on". Although most verbification instances in English draw no prescriptive attention, a few do, including this one. To avoid controversy, one can replace the verb sense with affect, which nearly always produces an acceptable result. See also the usage note for the noun sense.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Dutch

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English impact.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈɪmpɑkt/
  • Audio:(file)
  • Hyphenation: im‧pact

Noun

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impact m (plural impacts)

  1. impact

Synonyms

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French

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Etymology

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From Latin, see above.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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impact m (plural impacts)

  1. (literally or figuratively) impact

Further reading

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Romanian

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French impact, from Latin impactus.

Noun

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impact n (plural impacturi)

  1. impact

Declension

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Declension of impact
singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative-accusative impact impactul impacturi impacturile
genitive-dative impact impactului impacturi impacturilor
vocative impactule impacturilor
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