impact

Attested since the 17th century, from Latin impāctus.

• (noun): enPR: imʹpăkt, IPA^(key): /ˈɪmpækt/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (verb): enPR: im-păktʹ, IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpækt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

  • Rhymes: -ækt

impact (countable and uncountable, plural impacts)

1. The striking of one body against another; collision.
2. The force or energy of a collision of two objects.

   The hatchet cut the wood on impact.

3. (chiefly medicine) A forced impinging.

   His spine had an impingement; L4 and L5 made impact, which caused numbness in his leg.

4. (figurative, proscribed) A significant or strong influence or effect.

   His friend's opinion had an impact on his decision.

   Our choice of concrete will have a tremendous impact on the building's mechanical performance.

   • 2016, Jayson Lusk, Unnaturally Delicious, →ISBN, page 111:

     One way to reduce the environmental impact of meat eating is to make livestock more productive.

• The adposition generally used with "impact" is "on" (such as in last example in section above)
• There are some who find the figurative noun sense problematic, with a low threshold for labeling such use as overuse (cliché). In defensive editing, the solution is to replace the figurative noun sense with effect and the verb sense with affect, which nearly always produces an acceptable result. (Rarely, a phrase such as "the impact of late effects" is better stetted to avoid "the effect of [...] effects".)

• impinge

impact (third-person singular simple present impacts, present participle impacting, simple past and past participle impacted)

1. (transitive) To collide or strike, the act of impinging.

   When the hammer impacts the nail, it bends.

2. (transitive) To compress; to compact; to press into something or pack together.

   The footprints of birds do not impact the soil in the way those of dinosaurs do.

3. (transitive, figurative, proscribed) To significantly or strongly influence or affect; to have an impact on.

   I can make the changes, but it will impact the schedule.

4. (transitive, rare) To stamp or impress onto something.

   Ideas impacted on the mind.

Some authorities object to the verb sense of impact meaning "to significantly or strongly influence or affect; to have an impact on". Although most verbification instances in English draw no prescriptive attention, a few do, including this one. To avoid controversy, one can replace the verb sense with affect, which nearly always produces an acceptable result. See also the usage note for the noun sense.

• impaction
• impactor

From Latin, see above.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.pakt/

• Audio

  (file)

impact m (plural impacts)

1. (literally or figuratively) impact

• “impact”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Borrowed from French impact, from Latin impactus.

impact n (plural impacturi)

1. impact