Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality of being imperious; arrogance; haughtiness; urgency.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being imperious; arrogance; haughtiness.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The quality of being imperious; arrogance; haughtiness; urgency.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the trait of being imperious and overbearing

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

imperious +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • By the end, however, nobody cared about what subliminal image of alleged "imperiousness" would be telegraphed by the prop columns in the background or the CNN-initiated (not the Obama campaign's) Sky-cam overhead.

    Mary Lyon: The Mile-High Milestone 2008

  • Tenor Steven Sanders was powerful as the Officer, and David Kravitz captured both the imperiousness of the Provost Marshall and the hesitating terror of the Gold Merchant.

    Hindemith's 'Cardillac' Pulls No Punches Heidi Waleson 2011

  • When the time of meeting her husband came to hand, she must carry things off with high-handed imperiousness.

    The Wife of a King 2010

  • Yet was there in his softness an imperiousness, commanding me to be other than I am, forbidding me the right to crave in secret what I had made bold to ask for openly.

    The Kempton-Wace Letters 2010

  • No wifely sedateness in this other, nor calm strength of control; but rather the waywardness of mutable desires, rough-shod imperiousness and strange moods.

    THE PROPER “GIRLIE” 2010

  • I get to assume an entirely new personality, bursting with taut, Nordic imperiousness or sleek, impudent Euro-trashiness.

    Wotan, Your Double-Skim Latte Is Ready Joe Queenan 2011

  • He would have been confounded and wounded by the knowledge that some people, including Maddy, suspected that a vein of self-righteousness ran beneath the surface of his public persona, an imperiousness disguised by his elaborate courteousness but hinted at by his detached formality.

    O: A Presidential Novel Anonymous 2011

  • Diane von Furstenberg, who serves as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, declared with old-world imperiousness that the sales that had devastated the industry “cannot happen again.”

    Fashion in Dark Times 2009

  • Ms. Lambert might be forgiven for some, if not all, of her imperiousness.

    U.S. Fashion's First Voice Ralph Gardner Jr. 2011

  • When the time of meeting her husband came to hand, she must carry things off with high-handed imperiousness.

    The Wife of a King 2010

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