impute
See also: imputé
English
WOTD – 30 March 2007
Etymology
Borrowed from Old French imputer, from Latin imputare (“to bring into the reckoning, charge, impute”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ɪmˈpjuːt/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -uːt
Verb
impute (third-person singular simple present imputes, present participle imputing, simple past and past participle imputed)
- (transitive) To attribute or ascribe (responsibility or fault) to a cause or source.
- The teacher imputed the student's failure to his nervousness.
- 1751, Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, lines 37–40:
- Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, // If mem’ry o’er their tomb no trophies raise, // Where thro’ the long-drawn isle and fretted vault, // The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
- 1856 February, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith” in the Encyclopædia Britannica (eighth edition), volume and page numbers unknown:
- He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident. One vice of a darker shade was imputed to him, envy.
- 1956–1960, R.S. Peters, The Concept of Motivation, Routledge & Kegan Paul (second edition, 1960), chapter ii: “Motives and Motivation”, page 29:
- We ascribe or impute motives to others and avow them or confess to them in ourselves.
- (transitive, theology) To ascribe (sin or righteousness) to someone by substitution.
- 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin (2010), page 607:
- To use the technical language of theologians, God through his grace ‘imputes’ the merits of the crucified and risen Christ to a fallen human being who remains without inherent merit, and who without this ‘imputation’ would not be ‘made’ righteous at all.
- 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin (2010), page 607:
- (transitive) To take into account; to consider; to regard.
- 1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire VI, chapter lxiv, “A.D. 1355–1391: The Emperor John Palæologus; Discord of the Greeks”, page 328:
- They ſerved with honour in the wars of Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Conſtantinople excited his jealouſy: he threatened their lives; the new works were inſtantly demoliſhed; and we ſhall beſtow a praiſe, perhaps above the merit of Palæologus, if we impute this laſt humiliation as the cauſe of his death.
- 1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire VI, chapter lxiv, “A.D. 1355–1391: The Emperor John Palæologus; Discord of the Greeks”, page 328:
- (transitive) To attribute or credit to.
- People impute great cleverness to cats.
- 2014, Janet Clare, Shakespeare's Stage Traffic (page 11)
- In any case, the practices imputed to Shakespeare as an emergent dramatist were not in the least exceptional.
- (transitive) To replace missing data with substituted values.
Related terms
Translations
to attribute to a cause or source
to ascribe sin or righteousness
to take account of; regard
|
to attribute or credit to
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
|
References
- impute in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
- impute in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
French
Portuguese
Spanish
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.