English

Noun

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. A significant or strong influence; an 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.

Usage notes

• 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.
• The adposition generally used with "impact" is "on" (such as in last example in section above)
• There are English speakers who are so averse to the verb sense that they have become hypersensitive to the use of the figurative noun sense, 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".)

Derived terms

Related terms

• impinge

Translations

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To compress; to compact; to press or pack together.

   If fecal incontinence is caused by impacted stool in the rectum, the impaction must be removed.

2. (transitive, proscribed) To influence; to affect; to have an impact on.

   I can make the changes, but it will impact the schedule.

3. (transitive) To collide or strike.

   When the hammer impacts the nail, it bends.

Usage notes

Some authorities object to the verb sense of impact, meaning "to influence; to affect; to have an impact on" or "to collide or strike". Although most verbification instances in English draw no prescriptive attention, a few do, including this one. To avoid annoying those readers who care, 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

• impactor

Translations

French

Etymology

From Latin, see above.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.pakt/

Noun

impact m ‎(plural impacts)

1. (literally or figuratively) impact