How to Use imperative in a Sentence

imperative

1 of 2 adjective

• People resented his imperative tone of voice.
• We had a long and interesting evening with the Katzenbachs. He and Lyndon discussed the imperative need to make Washington a law-abiding city and how to go about it.
  — Lady Bird Johnson, 27 Jan. 1965
• Having a guy like that on the floor with those four is imperative.
  — Duane Rankin, The Arizona Republic, 22 Feb. 2023
• And this is a part Foltz said is imperative not to skip.
  — Kathrine Nero, The Enquirer, 25 Apr. 2021
• The Bengals found out the hard way that a good line is imperative.
  — cleveland, 17 Feb. 2022
• Soul is the imperative governing all of his music: the will to move the crowd.
  — Adam Bradley Adam Bradley Photographs By D’angelo Lovell Williams Styled By Ian Bradley Nick Haramis Photographs By Lise Sarfati Styled By Suzanne Koller Sasha Weiss Photographs By Justin French Susan Dominus Photographs By Luis Alberto Rodriguez Styled By Charlotte Collet, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2022
• To help rebuild the land of my people is a moral imperative.
  — Marjua Estevez, Billboard, 23 Oct. 2017
• Sharp blades on all our tools are an imperative to avoid bruising the canes and stems.
  — Rita Perwich, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 Jan. 2023
• In the moment when a phone rang, there was an imperative.
  — Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic, 31 May 2018
• Giving someone the space and sense of safety to cry in front of you is imperative.
  — Lydia Wang, Women's Health, 25 May 2023
• As part of that, the academic side of things is imperative for his team.
  — James T. Norman, chicagotribune.com, 11 Feb. 2022
• And that’s not the imperative here for this White House.
  — WSJ, 6 Feb. 2017
• That means playing the hits — and even among those, the most streamed — is imperative.
  — Rebecca Milzoff, Billboard, 25 Aug. 2022
• Which just goes to show that getting those stops will be imperative.
  — Eric Walden, The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 Aug. 2020
• The fight to build power is imperative, so that’s our work for when this strike is over.
  — Rebecca Sun, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Aug. 2023
• The topics might be heavy, the mood might be heavy, but finding the right words is imperative.
  — Mary Schumacher, chicagotribune.com, 27 Aug. 2019
• The scale of wealth concentration in a few hands makes a wealth tax imperative.
  — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 9 June 2021
• And the Wall Street imperative now is too strong to resist.
  — Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 11 Dec. 2020
• All of the above will be imperative because the market itself has not been a great selling point.
  — oregonlive, 15 Apr. 2022
• That's imperative when so much of each lap is spent sideways.
  — David Beard, Car and Driver, 3 May 2020
• That would make success with tourists an imperative, not a bonus.
  — Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times, 31 May 2023
• Coffee, of course, is imperative and often the first step for me.
  — Autumn Thatcher, The Salt Lake Tribune, 29 Dec. 2021
• To keep the layers from looking too blunt, twisting the hair is imperative.
  — Allure, 7 Sep. 2017
• So know that calling the police is not always imperative in a wreck.
  — Doug Turnbull, ajc, 10 May 2018
• Running around from show to show, your shoe choice is imperative.
  — Halie Lesavage, Harper's BAZAAR, 9 Sep. 2022
• Will’s imperative, by his own lights, has been to make a life for Tom.
  — Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 28 June 2018
• There was less imperative to believe in what the company stood for.
  — Mike Weinberger, Rolling Stone, 23 Feb. 2023
• But finding a young center in the draft is also imperative.
  — Bob McManaman, The Arizona Republic, 24 Apr. 2023
• To be clear, there is nothing wrong with a week of takeout, no moral imperative to cook.
  — Jessica Battilana, SFChronicle.com, 13 Nov. 2020
• That means that cleaning your jewelry soon after a trip to the beach or pool is imperative.
  — Glamour, 20 June 2019

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imperative

2 of 2 noun

• She considers it a moral imperative to help people in need.
• Here is a war with a clear front line with a clear moral imperative.
  — David Marchese David Marchese Photograph By Mamadi Doumbouya, New York Times, 22 Nov. 2023
• Maybe the imperative got in his head, but Taylor can’t put the ball on the ground.
  — Jim Ayello, The Indianapolis Star, 8 Nov. 2020
• For many of the veterans involved in the effort, the work feels like a moral imperative.
  — Jennifer Hansler, CNN, 25 Aug. 2021
• My job as an actor is to look at the human being and to look at the human imperative and to see what that is.
  — David Marchesephotograph By Mamadi Doumbouya, New York Times, 27 Sep. 2021
• This is an imperative to be present, to take extra care.
  — Joseph Lezza, Longreads, 30 Mar. 2023
• The reason to focus here isn’t just the moral imperative or as a recruitment tool.
  — Joe Karbowski, Forbes, 7 July 2021
• No other course of action is equal to the urgent crises and the democratic imperative of our present.
  — Ryan D. Doerfler, The New Republic, 13 Oct. 2020
• That imperative can either push them to act or restrain them.
  — Phillips P. O’Brien, Foreign Affairs, 29 June 2023
• The suits have a moral imperative to share—and share widely—in this new industry.
  — Andrew Deangelo, Forbes, 28 Apr. 2021
• In one myth, they are locked in conflict, sparring over the claims of reason and the imperative of power.
  — Corey Robin, The New Yorker, 12 Nov. 2020
• Rich countries do not only have a moral imperative to act.
  — Mark Suzman september 8, Foreign Affairs, 8 Sep. 2023
• This is an unmitigated good (and one that is a moral imperative to extend to the rest of the world).
  — Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic, 15 Aug. 2021
• What followed for Willson was a new life on the water and an imperative to shore up the ship and find safe harbor.
  — Kurtis Alexander, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 Oct. 2020
• Even the cosmic imperative for the three realms to exist in harmony are mentioned.
  — Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, 24 Jan. 2020
• The leagues have a moral imperative to find a way to remove him from their midst and force the sale of both clubs to owners who will restore integrity to them.
  — Bill Oram, oregonlive, 5 Oct. 2022
• His time with Perry gave him a new creative imperative: to be quick with his work.
  — Krystal Rodriguez, Billboard, 18 June 2019
• The question now is whether a shot in the arm will be viewed as a national imperative or government overreach.
  — Zachary B. Wolf, CNN, 10 Sep. 2021
• The imperative of the streaming boom is to turn the content spigot to full blast, but that makes content seem forgettable and cheap.
  — New York Times, 22 Dec. 2021
• The kid ends up getting blown about by words and different requests or imperatives.
  — Carolyn Hax, Detroit Free Press, 24 June 2017
• The second is to recognize that longer lives create a new health imperative of ageing well..
  — London Business School, Forbes, 20 Apr. 2021
• Ukraine’s imperative was to strike back before the Russians had time to regroup.
  — Karen Deyoung, Washington Post, 14 June 2023
• For many of us, sheltering in place has been more than a physical imperative.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 28 Oct. 2021
• For many creatives, this is a business imperative that needs to be baked into union contracts.
  — Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 28 Feb. 2023
• While this happened, there were two competing imperatives that controllers and the crew had to work under.
  — Eric Berger & Lee Hutchinson, Ars Technica, 11 Apr. 2020
• But grumpy customers will have to contend with the structural imperatives of the insurance business.
  — The Economist, 12 Sep. 2019
• This just like that, except the imperative of the pandemic lends far greater urgency.
  — Robert Hackett, Fortune, 13 Oct. 2020
• In other words, his first imperative was not — did not appear to be — power.
  — New York Times, 7 Mar. 2021
• But significantly more than a moral imperative is that the math doesn’t work out anymore.
  — Jessica Guynn, USA Today, 15 July 2021
• What should the West want to accomplish above and beyond serving a compelling moral imperative.
  — Josef Joffe, Time, 1 Dec. 2022

Last Updated: 27 Mar 2024