importance

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Consequence

Nouns

1. importance, import, consequence, moment, prominence, consideration, mark, materialness, primacy; significance, concern; emphasis, interest; distinction, prestige, grandeur, majesty, influence, greatness, superiority, notability, repute; weight, value, goodness; usefulness (see utility). See meaning, precedence.

2. (seriousness) gravity, seriousness, solemnity; no joke, no laughing matter; pressure, urgency, stress; matter of life and death; exigency.

3. (important events) memorabilia, notabilia, great doings; red-letter day, milestone, turning point. Informal, the big time.

4. (important items) essence, substance, gist; main chance, be-all and end-all, cardinal point; buzzword; sum and substance, sine qua non; breath of life; cream, salt, core, kernel, heart, nucleus; key, keynote, keystone, cornerstone; trump [card]; salient points; magnet, hot button, or pocketbook issue; essentials, fundamentals. Informal, where it's at, name of the game, the long and the short of it. See intrinsic.

5. personage, dignitary, figure, prima donna, chief, mogul, magnate, player, somebody. Informal, big fish in a small pond. Slang, big gun, shot, cheese, wheel, or daddy, VIP, bigwig, big enchilada, mugwump.

6. pointer, highlighter.

Verbs

1. import, signify, matter, boot, be somebody, carry weight; cut a figure (see repute); overshadow (see superiority); count for something, make history.

2. attach importance to, value, care for; set store by; mark (see indication); underline; put in italics or capitals, capitalize, italicize; accentuate, emphasize, feature, point up, stress, lay stress on; get or come to the point, get down to brass tacks or to cases; make a fuss or stir about, make much or something of, play up; hit the high spots; hit the bull's-eye.

Adjectives

1. important; of importance, momentous, material, of consequence, consequential, crucial; not to be overlooked, not to be despised, not to be sneezed at; egregious; weighty, influential, big-time; of note (see repute); prominent, salient, signal; memorable, remarkable; worthy of remark or notice; never to be forgotten; eventful, significant, telling, trenchant, emphatic, pregnant. Informal, earthshaking, bankable.

2. grave, serious, heavy; urgent, pressing, critical, instant, solemn, fateful, fatal. Informal, not to be sneezed at.

3. essential, vital, all-absorbing; cardinal, chief, main, prime, primary, principal, capital, foremost, overriding; in the front rank, first-rate; superior (see superiority); considerable (see greatness); marked. See priority.

Adverbs — importantly, materially, in the main, mainly, first and last or foremost. Informal, joking aside.

Quotations — It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important (Conan Doyle), The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them (Thomas Jefferson), Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important (T. S. Eliot).

Antonyms, see unimportance.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [The quality of being important]

Syn. significance, consequence, import, weight, moment, signification, drift, force, sense, tenor, purport, bearing, denotation, gist, effect, distinction, influence, usefulness, weightiness, momentousness, magnitude, value, materialness, emphasis, standing, caliber, stress, accent, concern, attention, interest, seriousness, gravity, point, substance, relevance, notable feature, sum and substance, cardinal point, essence; see also meaning , value 3 , 4 .

Ant. insignificance*, triviality, emptiness.

2. [Prominence]

Syn. greatness, eminence, consequence, moment; see fame 1 , quality 3 , rank 2 , 3 .

Syn.- importance , the broadest of these terms, implies greatness of worth, meaning, influence, etc. [ news of importance] ; consequence , often interchangeable with the preceding, more specifically suggests importance with regard to outcome or result [ a disagreement of no consequence] or resulting from social position [ a woman of consequence ] ; moment expresses this same idea of importance in effect with somewhat stronger force [ affairs of Great moment] ; weight implies an estimation of the relative importance of something [ his word carries Great weight with us ] ; significance implies an importance or momentousness because of a special meaning that may or may not be immediately apparent [ an event of significance]

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

consequence, significance, weight, moment, substance, value, magnitude, gravity, greatness, seriousness.

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun The quality or state of being important: concern, concernment, consequence, import, moment, significance, significancy, weight, weightiness. See IMPORTANT.