# immediate

Pronunciation: say "i-MEE-dee-uht" US /ɪˈmi.di.ət/, UK /ɪˈmiːdɪət/

## Adjective

1. Taking place at once, instantly, with no delay.
   - Simple: Happening right away, with no waiting or delay.
   - _The new policy had an immediate effect on traffic downtown._
   - _Her immediate reaction was to call for help._
2. Very near in space or relation; direct or adjacent.
   - Simple: Very close in space or relationship, with nothing in between.
   - _Police searched the immediate vicinity for clues._
   - _He is next in the immediate line of succession._
3. Manifestly true; obvious without need for argument or proof.
   - Simple: True in a way that is obvious right away and needs no proof.
   - _For Descartes, the certainty of one's own existence is immediate._
   - _The conclusion struck the jury as immediate, requiring no further explanation._
4. In computing, of an operand or value, contained within the instruction itself instead of being stored somewhere else, such as in a register or memory location.
   - Simple: Built right into the instruction itself, not stored somewhere else.
   - _The assembler encoded the constant as an immediate operand._
   - _An immediate value avoids an extra memory fetch during execution._
5. Designating a military transmission as urgent and requiring priority handling.
   - Simple: A label on a military message meaning it is urgent and must be handled fast.
   - _The dispatcher assigned the signal an immediate precedence._
   - _All immediate traffic is processed before routine messages._
6. As an artillery fire-mission modifier, signaling an urgent need for fire: either immediate smoke or immediate suppression.
   - Simple: In artillery, a word added to a fire request meaning the guns must fire at once.
   - _The forward observer ordered immediate suppression, and every gun fired its loaded rounds._
   - _Calling immediate smoke, the team had the battery reload and fire smoke shells._

## Origin

From Old French immediat (modern French immédiat), borrowed from Late Latin immediātus ("without anything in between"), formed from Latin in- plus mediātus, the past participle of mediō ("to halve, to be in the middle"), from medius ("middle").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/immediate (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).