urgent

adjective ur·gent \ ˈər-jənt \

Updated on: 20 Apr 2018

Definition of urgent

1 a : calling for immediate attention : pressing

urgent appeals

an urgent need

b : conveying a sense of urgency

2 : urging insistently : importunate

—

urgently

adverb

See urgent defined for English-language learners

See urgent defined for kids

Examples of urgent in a Sentence

We've come to deliver an urgent message.
an urgent appeal for assistance
He addressed us in an urgent manner.
An urgent voice came over the intercom, telling us to leave the building immediately.

Recent Examples of urgent from the Web

The focus will be on North Korea and its nuclear weapons program — an issue vastly more urgent for Tokyo than for Washington.

— don lee, latimes.com, "Snubbed by Trump, Japanese leader returns for summit at Mar-a-Lago," 16 Apr. 2018
The inspectors, from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, arrived in Syria on Saturday with the urgent goal of investigating the site of the April 7 attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma, which killed dozens.

— richard pÉrez-peÑa and rick gladstone, New York Times, "Chemical Arms Experts Blocked From Site of Syria Attack," 16 Apr. 2018
So Far Russia has called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council, and offered some harsh warnings before the attack.

— michael wolgelenter, Anchorage Daily News, "Seven takeaways from the airstrikes on Syria," 14 Apr. 2018
If the star of Notre Dame’s choir was asked to appear in Pitch Perfect 85, or whatever the next sequel in that franchise is, there’d be high-fiving all around, not urgent meetings with lawyers and compliance officers.

— nancy armour, USA TODAY, "NCAA breaks its rules for Dancing With the Stars, and that's progress," 13 Apr. 2018
In the first and third movements especially, Harding seemed to have something specific and urgent to say about each individual measure, which made for a lot of trees and not much forest.

— joshua kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, "S.F. Symphony follows Strauss over a mountain," 13 Apr. 2018
But an urgent search bizarrely turns up nothing missing.

— randy dotinga, The Christian Science Monitor, "In 'The Feather Thief,' a British bird burglary exposes a hidden world," 13 Apr. 2018
There will be exceptions for urgent cases; those details are still being worked out in pending state legislation.

— The Republic | azcentral.com, "Understand the system | Child-welfare investigators just knocked on my door. What do I do now?," 13 Apr. 2018
This makes implementing treatment all the more urgent once they're diagnosed.

— korin miller, SELF, "Mariah Carey Was Diagnosed With Bipolar Disorder 17 Years Ago, But Only Recently Sought Treatment," 11 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'urgent.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.