impatient

From Old French impacient (modern French impatient), from Latin impatiēns.

• IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpeɪʃənt/

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• Hyphenation: im‧pa‧tient

impatient (comparative more impatient, superlative most impatient)

1. Restless and intolerant of delays.
   • 1712 August 19 (Gregorian calendar)​, Joseph Addison; Richard Steele [et al.], “FRIDAY, August 8, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 469; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume V, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, OCLC 191120697:

     The impatient man will not give himself time to be informed of the matter that lies before him.

2. Anxious and eager, especially to begin something.
3. (obsolete) Not to be borne; unendurable.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     Dismayed with so defperate deadly wound,
     And eke impatient of unwonted payne,
     He lowdly bray'd with beastly yelling sownd

4. Prompted by, or exhibiting, impatience.

   impatient speeches or replies

   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene ii], line 287:

     What, will you tear / Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?

• impatiently
• impatience
• impassive

From Latin impatiens. Morphologically analyzable as im- +‎ patient.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.pa.sjɑ̃/

• Audio

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impatient (feminine impatiente, masculine plural impatients, feminine plural impatientes)

1. impatient

impatient m (plural impatients, feminine impatiente)

1. impatient person

• impatience
• impatienter

• “impatient”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.