imminent

adjective

im·​mi·​nent ˈi-mə-nənt 

: ready to take place : happening soon

… systems engineers have become rather blasé about the imminent liftoff.

—Steven L. Thompson

—often used of something bad or dangerous seen as menacingly near

imminent disaster

Like books, board games appear headed for imminent demise at the hands of cathode-ray terminals.

—Will Manley

imminently adverb

Did you know?

On Imminent and Eminent

Imminent bears a close resemblance to eminent, and native English-speakers can be excused if they sometimes have to check their spelling. No surprise, really, since the two, despite their very distinct meanings, come from near-identical sources. The Latin minēre means basically “to project, overhang,” and it forms the root of other Latin words. One added the prefix e-, meaning “out from,” to produce eminēre, “to stand out”; another took the prefix im-, meaning “upon,” and became imminēre, “to project.” The difference between “stand out” and “project” is obviously small. Still, even when eminent and imminent first appeared as English words in the 15th and 16th centuries respectively, they were clearly distinct in meaning, imminent’s prefix having strengthened the “overhang” sense of minēre to give the word its frequent suggestion of looming threat.

Synonyms

• impending
• looming

Examples of imminent in a Sentence

The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the local authorities were momentarily stunned, and began frantically trying to prepare for what they feared were further imminent attacks. —Richard A. Clarke, Atlantic, January/February 2005

The compression squashes the bullet slightly, enabling about a half-dozen spiral grooves cut along the barrel's inner wall to grab the bullet and make it spin. That spin stabilizes the bullet's imminent flight. —Peter Weiss, Science News, 11 Jan. 2003

Plaints about the imminent demise of the language are made in every century. But there is usually nothing inherently wrong with most changes the purists deplore. —Steven Pinker, New York Times, 24 Dec. 1999

We are awaiting their imminent arrival.

These patients are facing imminent death.

Recent Examples on the Web

Individuals entering the United States as organ or tissue donors, or those needing to attend the imminent death or funeral of a close family member, may also be exempt. —Billal Rahman, MSNBC Newsweek, 17 Oct. 2025

His 10,000-plus passing yards at Coastal Carolina suggested that day was not imminent. —Brian Hamilton, New York Times, 17 Oct. 2025

The opening scene starts with The Twits glued to the floor upside down, facing imminent death from the Dreaded Shrinks, with the main plot told in flashback. —Wilson Chapman, IndieWire, 17 Oct. 2025

With the imminent debut of the Makera Z1 on Kickstarter, the team behind some of the most advanced yet accessible CNC tools is taking another leap forward, bringing professional-grade power, intelligence, and versatility to a compact, creator-friendly machine. —New Atlas, 16 Oct. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Middle English imynent, borrowed from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French iminent, emynant, borrowed from Latin imminent-, imminens, present participle of imminēre "to rise up, project so as to overhang (of a structure or natural feature), be intent, impend (of something unpleasant or dangerous), threaten," from im- im- + -minēre, taken to mean "stand out, rise above" (unattested without a prefix) — more at minatory

First Known Use

1528, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for imminent

• immanent
• discriminant

Kids Definition

imminent

adjective

im·​mi·​nent ˈim-ə-nənt 

: being about to happen

in imminent danger

imminently adverb