urgency

English

Alternative forms

• urgence (archaic)

Etymology

From urgent +‎ -ency or Latin urgentia.

Pronunciation

• (UK, General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈɜː.d͡ʒən.si/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈɝ.d͡ʒən.si/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)dʒənsi

Noun

urgency (countable and uncountable, plural urgencies)

1. The quality or condition of being urgent.

   the urgency of a demand

   • 2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Arsenal lacked urgency and inspiration until shortly before half-time, Wheater's block denying Van Persie from close range before Walcott drilled wide.

2. Insistence, pressure, urge.

   I have this sudden urgency to use the toilet.

3. (medicine) A sudden and compelling need to urinate that is difficult to defer, associated with conditions such as urinary tract infections and overactive bladder.

Synonyms

• exigency
• clamancy

Translations

quality or condition of being urgent

• Bulgarian: спешност (bg) f (spešnost)
• Catalan: urgència (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 緊迫／紧迫 (zh) (jǐnpò)

• Czech: naléhavost f
• Esperanto: urĝeco
• Finnish: kiireellisyys (fi)
• French: urgence (fr) f
• Galician: urxencia (gl) f
• German: Dringlichkeit (de) f
• Greek: επείγον (el) n (epeígon)
• Ido: urjanteso (io), urjo (io)
• Indonesian: kêgêntingan
• Italian: urgenza (it) f, urgenze (it) f pl
• Ladino: urjensia f
• Latin: exigentia f
• Macedonian: и́тност f (ítnost)
• Persian: اورژانس (fa)
• Portuguese: urgência (pt)
• Romanian: urgență (ro) f
• Russian: сро́чность (ru) f (sróčnostʹ)
• Spanish: urgencia (es) f, premura, apremio (es) m, perentoriedad f
• Telugu: తొందర (te) (tondara)
• Turkish: aciliyet (tr), ivedilik (tr)

References

• “urgency”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.