English

Verb

impute ‎(third-person singular simple present imputes, present participle imputing, simple past and past participle imputed)

1. (transitive) To attribute or ascribe (responsibility or fault) to a cause or source.

   The teacher imputed the student's failure to his nervousness.

   • 1751, Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, lines 37–40:

     Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, // If mem’ry o’er their tomb no trophies raise, // Where thro’ the long-drawn isle and fretted vault, // The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

   • 1856 February, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith” in the Encyclopædia Britannica (eighth edition), volume and page numbers unknown:

     He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident. One vice of a darker shade was imputed to him, envy.

   • 1956–1960, R.S. Peters, The Concept of Motivation, Routledge & Kegan Paul (second edition, 1960), chapter ii: “Motives and Motivation”, page 29:

     We ascribe or impute motives to others and avow them or confess to them in ourselves.

2. (transitive, theology) To ascribe (sin or righteousness) to someone by substitution.
   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin (2010), page 607:

     To use the technical language of theologians, God through his grace ‘imputes’ the merits of the crucified and risen Christ to a fallen human being who remains without inherent merit, and who without this ‘imputation’ would not be ‘made’ righteous at all.

3. (transitive) To take into account; to consider; to regard.
   • 1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire VI, chapter lxiv, “A.D. 1355–1391: The Emperor John Palæologus; Discord of the Greeks”, page 328:

     They ſerved with honour in the wars of Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Conſtantinople excited his jealouſy: he threatened their lives; the new works were inſtantly demoliſhed; and we ſhall beſtow a praiſe, perhaps above the merit of Palæologus, if we impute this laſt humiliation as the cauſe of his death.

4. (transitive) To attribute or credit to.

   People impute great cleverness to cats.

   • 2014, Janet Clare, Shakespeare's Stage Traffic (page 11)

     In any case, the practices imputed to Shakespeare as an emergent dramatist were not in the least exceptional.

Synonyms

• ascribe, assign, attribute, charge, reckon, consider, imply, insinuate

Related terms

• imputability
• imputable
• imputableness
• imputably
• imputation
• imputed

Translations

References

• impute in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• impute in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

• uptime

French

Verb

impute

1. first-person singular present indicative of imputer
2. third-person singular present indicative of imputer
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of imputer
4. first-person singular present subjunctive of imputer
5. second-person singular imperative of imputer

Portuguese

Verb

impute

1. first-person singular present subjunctive of imputar
2. third-person singular present subjunctive of imputar
3. first-person singular imperative of imputar
4. third-person singular imperative of imputar

Spanish

Verb

impute

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of imputar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of imputar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of imputar.