IMPETUOSITY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does impetuosity mean? 

• IMPETUOSITY (noun)
  The noun IMPETUOSITY has 1 sense:

1. rash impulsiveness

  Familiarity information: IMPETUOSITY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMPETUOSITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Rash impulsiveness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

impetuosity; impetuousness

Hypernyms ("impetuosity" is a kind of...):

impulsiveness (the trait of acting suddenly on impulse without reflection)

Derivation:

impetuous (characterized by undue haste and lack of thought or deliberation)

 Context examples 

Here it is, and we never can thank you enough for the patient sowing and reaping you have done, cried Jo, with the loving impetuosity which she never would outgrow.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Jonathan's impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they cowered, aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She must learn to feel that she had been mistaken with regard to both; that she had been unfairly influenced by appearances in each; that because Captain Wentworth's manners had not suited her own ideas, she had been too quick in suspecting them to indicate a character of dangerous impetuosity; and that because Mr Elliot's manners had precisely pleased her in their propriety and correctness, their general politeness and suavity, she had been too quick in receiving them as the certain result of the most correct opinions and well-regulated mind.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first syllable of SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now burst forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a defensive weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the form of a large letter.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)