# importance

Pronunciation: US say "im-POR-tuhns" /ɪmˈpɔɹtəns/; UK say "im-PAW-tuhns" /ɪmˈpɔːtəns/

## Noun

1. The quality of being significant or valuable enough to deserve attention; how much something matters.
   - Simple: How much something matters, or the fact that it matters a lot.
   - _Historians stress the importance of checking primary sources._
   - _The committee debated the importance of the proposed change._
2. A person's high status or standing, whether others grant it or the person only feels it.
   - Simple: A person's high status or standing, either real or imagined.
   - _The duke moved through the hall with an exaggerated sense of his own importance._
   - _Newcomers sometimes inflate their own importance within the firm._

## Noun

3. A thing or matter that carries weight or deserves notice. *(rare)*
   - Simple: A thing or matter that has real value or meaning.

## Origin

Medieval Latin importantia passed into Middle French as importance and then into Middle English as importaunce. Looked at from the surface, it is import ("to be important") with the suffix -ance added.

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