Urgency

How to spell urgency

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce urgency

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does urgency mean?

1. nounThe quality of requiring swift action or immediate attention.

Urgency in a sentence

• The email stressed the urgency of replying before the deadline.

• There was a clear sense of urgency in the manager's voice.

Where does urgency come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin verb urgere, which literally meant 'to press', 'to push', or 'to drive forward', the same sense of physical force you feel when something pushes against you. From that verb Latin formed urgens, the present participle meaning 'pressing', and from there the abstract noun describing the quality of being pressing. English took the word in during the early 1600s, often through French, to name the condition of demanding immediate attention. The same Latin root sits inside the closely related verb 'urge', so when you urge someone you are quite literally pressing them to act. The tricky part of the spelling is the soft middle: the -gency ending is pronounced with a soft 'g' and an unstressed schwa, which tempts writers toward 'urgancy' or 'urgensy'.

How the word is built

• urg- (from Latin urgere: to press, push)
• -ency (noun suffix denoting a state or quality)