impulsive

im·pul·sive

adj \im-ˈpəl-siv\

Definition of IMPULSIVE

1

: having the power of or actually driving or impelling

2

a : arising from an impulse <an impulsive decision> b : prone to act on impulse <an impulsive young man>

3

: acting momentarily

— im·pul·sive·ly adverb

— im·pul·sive·ness noun

— im·pul·siv·i·ty \-ˌpəl-ˈsi-və-tē\ noun

Examples of IMPULSIVE

1. She's impulsive and often does things that she later regrets.
2. He needs to learn to control his impulsive behavior.
3. She made an impulsive decision to quit her job.
4. I couldn't make out exactly what had happened, though I could guess how it started—the two of them talking, kidding around when Mrs. Ramsey came down to the library basement to file some periodicals, an impulsive kiss in the stacks … —Tobias Wolff, Old School, 2003
5. There was an odd nobility, a knight-errant quality, about Alan—in his willingness to suffer for the sake of life itself, in his tendency to view himself under harsher light than he would turn on others, in his impulsive generosity. —Tracy Kidder, Home Town, 1999
6. So speaks Maude Bailey, the celibate feminist scholar heroine of A. S. Byatt's fifth novel, as, in an impulsive collusion with a male scholar she scarcely knows, she runs off to Brittany. —Joyce Carol Oates, Vogue, November 1990

Origin of IMPULSIVE

(see ²impulse)

First Known Use: 15th century

Related to IMPULSIVE

Synonyms: besetting, driven, compulsive, obsessional, obsessive

Related Words: irrepressible, uncontrollable; automatic, instinctive, involuntary, knee-jerk, reflex, spontaneous; conditioned, mechanical; unconscious, unthinking, unwitting; capricious, unpredictable, whimsical

Near Antonyms: unforced, voluntary, willful (or wilful); controllable, manageable, resistible

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See Synonym Discussion at spontaneous

Other Psychology Terms

fetish, hypochondria, intelligence, mania, narcissism, neurosis, pathological, psychosis, schadenfreude, subliminal

Rhymes with IMPULSIVE

compulsive, convulsive, expulsive, propulsive, repulsive, revulsive