Urgent

How to spell urgent

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce urgent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does urgent mean?

1. adjectiveRequiring immediate action or attention.

Urgent in a sentence

• The email was marked urgent and needed a reply within the hour.

• There is an urgent need for more staff in the warehouse this week.

Where does urgent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin urgere, a verb meaning 'to press', 'to push', or 'to drive forward'. Its present participle urgens, with the stem urgent-, described something that was actively pressing or insistent, and that participle is the direct ancestor of our adjective. English took the word in during the fifteenth century, largely by way of Old French, with the sense of a demand that pushes for immediate attention. The same Latin root survives in the everyday verb 'urge', which still carries that idea of pressing someone to act. Because the word ends in the unstressed -ent rather than -ant, it can trip writers who guess the vowel by ear; remembering its tie to 'urge' helps anchor the spelling.

How the word is built

• urg- (from urgere: to press, drive)
• -ent (adjective suffix)