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urgent

adjective

  1. important and requiring haste
L45176 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈɜː.d͡ʒənt/ / /ˈɝ.d͡ʒənt/

adj

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.

  1. Requiring immediate attention.

    An urgent appeal was sent out for assistance.

  2. Of people: insistent, solicitous.

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

    My kind friends here are most affectionately urgent with me to prolong my stay […].