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Etymology
Origin of urgency
First recorded in 1530–40; from Late Latin urgentia “pressure,” from urgent-, stem of urgēns “pressing” ( see urgent) + -ia -ia
Explanation
When something has urgency it requires speedy action. If your weather report is flashing red and predicting a hurricane with record rainfall, that forecast would give some urgency to getting that hole in your roof fixed. Urgency comes from the Latin urgere, which means "press, or drive," and it's related to the English word urge. If there's urgency to a situation, it's a pressing issue and you have to respond quickly! Urgency also means an earnest and insistent need. When your friend calls and tells you, "Get into the basement, the hurricane is coming," there would be an urgency in your friend's voice that would make you scurry downstairs to safety.
Vocabulary lists containing urgency
The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 6
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Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Bryan is dealing with relationship problems that add to the urgency of his desire to survive, but he’s also just a dude with questionable self-preservation instincts, which makes for a good adventure.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
"And I think that the police's urgency to get him arrested and the urgency to get it in the press, I think he couldn't understand why there wasn't an urgency to help clear his name."
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
Johnson, the House speaker, said on Sunday that Congress shouldn’t impose an emergency moratorium on AI development even as he said lawmakers should show a sense of urgency.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 14, 2026
Declining butterfly populations sharpen Ms. Korsgaard’s sense of urgency.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
I had waded across that river many times, but I never felt an urgency like today.
From "Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya
And I use the word modern, meaning these characters’ urgencies, their interiorities, their conflict, the ways in which they contradict themselves.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2024
Most goes to communities close to the border “due to the urgencies they are confronting,” but cities far from the border also get funds.
From Seattle Times ● May 8, 2023
"We are ready to give Italy a government that addresses the urgencies and challenges of our time with understanding and competence," Meloni wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
From Reuters ● Oct. 21, 2022
“Powers’s insightful, often poetic prose draws us at once more deeply toward the infinitude of the imagination and more vigorously toward the urgencies of the real and familiar stakes rattling our persons and our planet.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 7, 2021
When you're dying for so long, old urgencies wither and die.
From "What the Night Sings" by Vesper Stamper
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
