1
as in capriciousness
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2
as in impulsiveness
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Recent Examples of impetuosity
What few at the time foresaw was that the region could be delivered to China through Trump’s sheer impetuosity, or his inability to think before posting.
—
Quico Toro, The Atlantic, 27 Jan. 2025
Two centuries later, the Greek historian Polybius contrasted Roman discipline, order, and rationality with Celtic impetuosity, chaos, and passion on the battlefield.
—Michele Gelfand, Foreign Affairs, 22 June 2021
Meeting his current expedition partner, Børge Ousland, required another stroke of youthful impetuosity.
—Kelly Bastone, Outside Online, 8 Nov. 2017
His sacred vows didn’t stop Kelly from displaying the impetuosity that brands this city’s fans.
—Frank Fitzpatrick, Philly.com, 14 Apr. 2018
Regardless of whether fate led these men to board the train, Eastwood suggests that what drove them to act when faced with a crisis was their youthful impetuosity.
—Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader, 9 Feb. 2018
Not to give too much away, but Alice’s romantic impetuosity in her youth has fateful consequences that only a show as sentimentally over the top as this could happily resolve.
—Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 23 Oct. 2017
This president combines qualities of Shakespeare’s worst kings: the vanity of Lear, the impetuosity of Richard II, the maliciousness of Richard III.
—Paula Marantz Cohen, WSJ, 8 Sep. 2017
But, then again, that’s the sort of recipe favored by Donald Trump, a president who acts with impetuosity and has little time for strategy.
—Matt Giles, Longreads, 31 July 2017
Quico Toro, The Atlantic, 27 Jan. 2025
Two centuries later, the Greek historian Polybius contrasted Roman discipline, order, and rationality with Celtic impetuosity, chaos, and passion on the battlefield.
—Michele Gelfand, Foreign Affairs, 22 June 2021
Meeting his current expedition partner, Børge Ousland, required another stroke of youthful impetuosity.
—Kelly Bastone, Outside Online, 8 Nov. 2017
His sacred vows didn’t stop Kelly from displaying the impetuosity that brands this city’s fans.
—Frank Fitzpatrick, Philly.com, 14 Apr. 2018
Regardless of whether fate led these men to board the train, Eastwood suggests that what drove them to act when faced with a crisis was their youthful impetuosity.
—Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader, 9 Feb. 2018
Not to give too much away, but Alice’s romantic impetuosity in her youth has fateful consequences that only a show as sentimentally over the top as this could happily resolve.
—Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 23 Oct. 2017
This president combines qualities of Shakespeare’s worst kings: the vanity of Lear, the impetuosity of Richard II, the maliciousness of Richard III.
—Paula Marantz Cohen, WSJ, 8 Sep. 2017
But, then again, that’s the sort of recipe favored by Donald Trump, a president who acts with impetuosity and has little time for strategy.
—Matt Giles, Longreads, 31 July 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for impetuosity
Noun
-
Trump ran as a populist, but his actions in office have built a new élite shaped by his personal preference and caprice.—
Nathan Heller,
New Yorker,
9 Apr. 2025
-
Fear of political caprice masquerading as strategy, of a trade war metastasizing into financial contagion, and of a world where traditional safe havens—currencies, institutions, alliances—no longer offer much safety at all.—
Mohammed Soliman,
MSNBC Newsweek,
29 Apr. 2025
Noun
-
Attitudes have fluctuated from negative to positive, and then from positive to negative with exhausting rapidity.—
Andrey Kurkov,
Time,
15 May 2025
-
This is a very much different thing than COVID in terms of rap -- rapidity and speed and other things.—
ABC NEWS,
ABC News,
29 Apr. 2025
Noun
-
Coach, too, didn’t shy away from a little footwear playfulness at New York Fashion Week last year, for which the brand’s Soho Sneaker was introduced to childlike whimsy — by way of prominent charms taking up prime real estate on the shoe’s upper and, understandably, attracting all the attention.—
Stacia Datskovska,
Footwear News,
29 May 2025
-
Black Ink Interiors In a traditional living room in Scottsdale’s Silverleaf community, Black Ink Interiors added vibrant decorative pillows for a touch of whimsy and charm.—
Elizabeth Stamp,
Architectural Digest,
20 May 2025
Noun
-
Vape shops have spread across the American retail landscape with a bizarre swiftness, seemingly unbeholden to the same vagaries of inflation, customer demand, and local real estate that bind every other kind of storefront small business in the country.—
Amanda Mull,
The Atlantic,
22 June 2023
-
Third, repeaters should prove capable of swapping this data between nodes in a network in a predictable way and not one too subject to the vagaries of chance.—
IEEE Spectrum,
IEEE Spectrum,
13 June 2023
Noun
-
Automatic bids would provide a layer of protection for the blue bloods from the whims of a committee that uses an inscrutable process.—
Jon Wilner,
Mercury News,
22 May 2025
-
The scope of these enormous solar storms is important to understand for technology experts in the 21st century, which is much more vulnerable to the whims of the sun due to society's dependence on electronic systems and space technologies.—
Tereza Pultarova,
Space.com,
19 May 2025
Noun
-
They were arrested on marijuana and lewd vagrancy charges.—
Victoria Edel,
People.com,
18 May 2025
-
Roughly 12% were of African descent — newly unshackled, technically free and already being legally recaptured under other names: peonage, vagrancy laws, convict leasing.—
Jack Hill,
Baltimore Sun,
17 May 2025
Noun
-
Don’t worry, in this fantasy relationship Briney’s character Conrad is all yours, no messy love triangle!—
Ana Calderone,
People.com,
25 May 2025
-
The law that fantasy football supposedly broke was the prohibition on gambling on sporting events, a line that was blurred by fantasy leagues’ use of cash entries and prizes.—
David Hill,
Rolling Stone,
24 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Impetuosity.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/impetuosity. Accessed 6 Jun. 2025.
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