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urgently

adverbB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,891 of 15,258leans spoken

Urgently means in a way that cannot wait. Needed urgently, urgently required, spoke urgently.

It describes the need and the manner both — help is needed urgently and somebody speaks urgently. In medicine urgent has a defined place between routine and emergency, and hospitals run urgent care as a distinct service. Note urgency; and that urge and urgent come from a Latin verb meaning to press.

Definitions of urgently

  1. 1adverburgentlyIn a way that cannot wait.B2+

    “The hospital urgently needs blood donors after the motorway crash.”

urgently is a manner of pressing need.

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *werǵʰ- — bind, squeeze

  2. Latin

    urgēns

  3. Middle French

    urgent — pressing, impelling

  4. English

    urgent

  5. English, today

    urgently

Built from

  • urgeo · Latin — to press

From urgent + -ly. urgent Borrowed from Middle French urgent (“pressing, impelling”), from Latin urgēns, from urgeo (“to press”), from Proto-Indo-European werǵʰ- (“bind, squeeze”). Equivalent to urge + ent. Related to German würgen (“to strangle”), Lithuanian verzti (“to string, tighten, constrict”), Russian - (poetic) отверза́ть (“to open”) literally “to untie”, Polish otwierać (“to open”)) and English worry, wring, wreak, wreck.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Everyday Adjectives

Practise this word

urgently in the wild

  • As the new cars were urgently required they were based on existing L Stock.

    London Underground M and N Stock

  • The Security Council called upon Cyprus and Northern Cyprus to address the humanitarian issue relating to missing persons urgently.

    United Nations Security Council Resolution 1283

  • The security council called on both Cyprus and Northern Cyprus to urgently address the humanitarian issue of missing persons.

    United Nations Security Council Resolution 1568

  • Photographic support was urgently developed, initially requiring a full-time photographer on board to handle the heavy, awkward equipment.

    Aerial reconnaissance in World War I

  • Characters submitted during the same period which were needed less urgently were included in CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E instead.

    CJK Unified Ideographs Extension D

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the urgeo family

urgenturge

urgently — used about once every 2,903 pages · #7,891 · point at the bar for the others

  • urgency