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What is "exigent"

Crossword clues for exigent

exigent
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
exigent
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Despairing of a cluttered cupboard, baffled by anger's exigent protocols, we could not say what was meant.
▪ It may well be that had they known of it they would have been even more exigent.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Exigent

Exigent \Ex`i*gent\, a. [L. exigens, -entis, p. pr. of exigere to drive out or forth, require, exact. See Exact.] Exacting or requiring immediate aid or action; pressing; critical. ``At this exigent moment.''
--Burke.

Exigent

Exigent \Ex"i*gent\, n.

  1. Exigency; pressing necessity; decisive moment. [Obs.]

    Why do you cross me in this exigent?
    --Shak.

  2. (o. Eng. Law) The name of a writ in proceedings before outlawry.
    --Abbott.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
exigent

1660s, "urgent," a back-formation from exigency or else from Latin exigentem (nominative exigens), present participle of exigere "to demand; drive out, drive forth" (see exact (v.)).

Wiktionary
exigent

a. 1 urgent; needing immediate action. 2 demanding; needing great effort. n. 1 (context archaic English) Extremity; end; limit; pressing urgency 2 (context obsolete UK legal English) The name of a writ in proceedings before outlawry.

WordNet
exigent

  1. adj. demanding attention; "clamant needs"; "a crying need"; "regarded literary questions as exigent and momentous"- H.L.Mencken; "insistent hunger"; "an instant need" [syn: clamant, crying, insistent, instant]

  2. requiring precise accuracy; "an exacting job"; "became more exigent over his pronunciation" [syn: exacting]

Usage examples of "exigent".

The name carries conviction from the start, and pronounced a la francaise, with the accent equal upon all the syllables, is quite as Spanish as the most exigent of comic operas could possibly desire.

He may dream of a beautiful and complaisant mistress, less exigent and mercurial than any a bachelor may hope to discover--and stand aghast at admitting her to his bank-book, his family-tree and his secret ambitions.

With warrantless searches, if dope is discovered the courts always think of an exigent circumstance justifying the intrusion.

A few people fell away, and went to less exigent churches, but of these almost all came traipsing back, admitting with humility that religion was more fun at St.

We think we are not breaching the confidence of the Confessional if we merely remark that in these last months the brothers' own confessions have become phantasmatical in the extreme, and bloodcurdling to hear, and necessitating the most exigent penances for absolution.