immediateadj.n.adv.
/ᵻˈmiːdɪət/, /ᵻˈmiːdʒət/, U.S. /ᵻˈmidiət/ A. adj.† 6. Uninterrupted in course; direct. Obsolete. rare.
1. Said of a person or thing in its relation to another: That has no intermediary or intervening member, medium, or agent; that is in actual contact or direct personal relation.
a. Of a person.
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the world > relative properties > relationship > [adjective] > immediate or direct > in actual contact (of persons)
very1528
immediate1548
1548 Hall's Vnion: Henry VIII f. xlviijv The Dolphyn desyred..[them] to be two of his immediat aides.
1686 in J. Keble Life T. Wilson: Pt. I (1863) i. 27 Nothing unbecoming an immediat servant and follower of Christ.
1781 E. Gibbon Decline & Fall II. xvii. 51 The emperor conferred the rank of Illustrious on seven of his more immediate servants.
1813 C. Lamb in Philanthropist Jan. 50 My next more immediate companions.
b. spec. In Feudal Law, said of the relation between two persons one of whom holds of the other directly, as in immediate lord, immediate tenant, immediate tenure; also elliptically = Holding directly of the sovereign or lord paramount, spec. in Germany, of the Emperor.
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society > law > legal right > right of possession or ownership > tenure of property > [adjective] > direct or intermediate
mediate1454
immediate1543
1543–4 Act 35 Hen. VIII c. 4 The chiefe lorde or lordes immediate, of whom suche..houses be holden.
1548 Hall's Vnion: Richard III f. lj Ready to serue..their natural and immediate lord Jasper erle of Penbrooke.
1614 J. Selden Titles of Honor 229 To be free from either a mediat, or immediat Tenure of him.
1660 Exact Accompt Trial Regicides 10 The King is immediate from God.
1818 H. Hallam View Europe Middle Ages I. v. 481 The inferior nobility,..having now become immediate, abused that independence.
1863 H. Cox Inst. Eng. Govt. i. iii. 11 The King's immediate tenants were bound to attend his court.
c. Of a thing.
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the world > relative properties > relationship > [adjective] > immediate or direct > of something immediately related
immediate1563
1563 W. Fulke Goodle Gallerye Causes Meteors iii. f. 44 All men haue taken them as immediat myracles, without any naturall meane or cause.
1597 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie v. lvii. 128 The true immediate cause why Baptisme..is necessarie.
a1628 J. Preston Treat. Effectual Faith 51 in Breast-plate of Faith (1631) He doth it by an immediate voice, by which he speaketh immediately to our spirits.
a1763 W. Shenstone Wks. (1768) II. 95 Objects..less calculated to strike the immediate eye.
a1862 H. T. Buckle Misc. Wks. (1872) I. 4 The immediate object of all art is either pleasure or utility.
2.
a. Of a relation or action between two things: Acting or existing without any intervening medium or agency; involving actual contact or direct relation: opposed to mediate and remote. immediate percussion n. Medicine percussion (percussion n. 5) performed directly upon the body; cf. mediate percussion n. at mediate adj. Compounds.
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the world > relative properties > relationship > [adjective] > immediate or direct
immediate1533
direct1600
primary1621
proximate1641
the world > action or operation > manner of action > [adjective] > specific modes of action or operation > direct
immediate1533
direct1600
short-circuited1951
1533 T. More Apol. in Wks. 893/1 As longe as the Prelates pretend that their authoritye is so hygh and so immediate of God, that the people are bounde to obeye theim.
1625 in R. Sanderson Rymer's Fœdera (1726) XVIII. 240/2 By Our owne ymmediate commaunde and for Our owne ymmediate Service.
1709 G. Berkeley Ess. New Theory of Vision §59. 64 Bodies operating on our Organs, by an immediate Application.
1712 W. Rogers Cruising Voy. 26 We are desirous of an immediate Traffick with them.
1864 F. C. Bowen Treat. Logic i. 2 Each [Intuition] is immediate,—that is, it does not come through the intervention of any other state of mind.
1864 F. C. Bowen Treat. Logic ii. 34 They rest upon the immediate testimony of consciousness.
b. spec. immediate inference (Logic): an inference drawn from a single premiss and therefore arrived at without the intervention of a middle term; sometimes called ‘interpretative inference’, because it renders explicit what was implicit in the original proposition. immediate knowledge (Philosophy): knowledge of self-evident truth; intuitive knowledge, as distinguished from that arrived at by means of demonstration or proof.
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the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > logic > logical syllogism > logical argument > [noun] > inference
syllogism1588
subalternation1650
immediacya1834
immediate inference1843
mediate inference1849
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > logic > logical syllogism > [noun] > conclusion > types of
immediacy1864
immediate inference1866
the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > knowledge, what is known > [noun] > intuitive
immediacya1834
immediate knowledge1874
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > epistemology > [noun] > cognition > immediate cognition
intuition1660
belief1831
immediacya1834
immediate knowledge1874
1624 N. De Lawne tr. P. Du Moulin Elements Logick 166 Of immediate propositions..some are immediate in regard of the subject, and others are immediate in regard of the cause.
1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. Introd. §5 Whatever knowledge has been acquired otherwise than by immediate inference.
1866 T. Fowler Elem. Deduct. Logic (1869) ii. 73 Of Immediate Inferences the most important forms are Oppositions, Conversions, Permutations.
1874 W. Wallace tr. G. W. F. Hegel Logic §24. 45 When we compare the different forms of knowledge with one another, the first of them, immediate or intuitive knowledge, may perhaps seem the finest, noblest and most appropriate.
1874 W. Wallace tr. G. W. F. Hegel Logic §64. 108 The difference between philosophy and the asseverations of immediate knowledge rather centres in the exclusive position which immediate knowledge takes up and in its opposition to philosophy.
3.
a. Having no person, thing, or space intervening, in place, order, or succession; standing or coming nearest or next; proximate, nearest, next; close, near. In reference to place often used loosely of a distance which is treated as of no account.
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the world > space > distance > nearness > [adjective] > very near > immediate, of proximity, etc.
immediate1604
close1686
the world > relative properties > order > order, sequence, or succession > preceding or following in order > [adjective] > most closely
nextOE
immediate1604
1604 W. Shakespeare Hamlet i. ii. 109 You are the most imediate to our throne. View more context for this quotation
1611 T. Heywood Golden Age iii. sig. Gv I am Iupiter, King Saturnes sonne, immediate heire to Creet.
1800 J. Jebb Let. 29 May in J. Jebb & A. Knox Thirty Years' Corr. (1834) I. 3 Immediate neighbourhood I have none, save one family.
1866 J. E. T. Rogers Hist. Agric. & Prices I. xxiii. 598 In immediate proximity to the mines.
1888 J. Inglis Tent Life Tigerland 183 This took us both away from the immediate vicinity of the plot.
1899 N.E.D. at Immediate Mod. I know no one of the name in the immediate neighbourhood. I have made it known to my immediate neighbours on each side.
b. immediate constituent n. Linguistics a grammatical subdivision of a sentence, phrase, or word, which can sometimes be analysed into further such constituents; in the case of a word, so as to reveal its morphological structure. (opposed to ultimate constituent.)
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the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > syntax or word order > syntactic unit or constituent > [noun] > other specific syntactic constituents
terminant1589
absolute1709
adjectival1866
word group1871
nexus1924
immediate constituent1933
case marker1941
syndeton1954
group1959
placeholder1964
1933 L. Bloomfield Lang. xiii. 210 The principle of immediate constituents will lead us..to class a form like gentlemanly not as a compound word, but as a derived secondary word, since the immediate constituents are the bound form -ly and the underlying word gentleman.
1943 Language 19 79 In separating immediate constituents, one attempts to disturb as little as possible the relationship between the meaning of the parts of the combination and the meaning of the combination as a whole.
1958 A. A. Hill Introd. Ling. Struct. viii. 127 Immediate constituent analysis is the process of segmenting a complex construction by successive single cuts.
1961 R. B. Long Sentence & its Parts 491 Immediate Constituents. This term is often used of what are here called simply components.
1963 F. G. Lounsbury in J. A. Fishman Readings Sociol. of Lang. (1968) 45 Linguistic analysis proceeds by the method of ‘immediate constituents’, i.e., by division of a larger unit into two immediate constituents... In the end, a systematic pursuit of a different set of policies in immediate-constituent division would, in fact, produce a different grammar of the same language.
1963 J. Lyons Struct. Semantics ii. 14 It has sometimes been assumed that all the sentences of a particular language can be analysed syntactically in terms of the immediate-constituent, or phrase-structure model.
1964 R. H. Robins Gen. Linguistics vi. 240 The processes of immediate constituent analysis..by which the longest and most complex sentences can be reduced by analysis to successive expansions of one of a few simple basic sentence structures.
1967 F. P. Dinneen Introd. Gen. Ling. ix. 263 In analyzing the sentence Poor John ran away, Bloomfield found that it contains five morphemes: poor, John, ran, a-, and way. They are also the ultimate constituents of the sentence, but the immediate constituents are Poor John and ran away.
1971 P. Gaeng Introd. Princ. Lang. v. 91 The sentence The rebellious students walked to the dean's office consists of two main parts—two immediate constituents—namely, the rebellious students and walked to the dean's office. Each part, in turn, consists of two parts, and each of these consists of two parts, until by cutting the sentence into smaller and smaller groupings, we reach the level of single words or morphemes, the ultimate constituents.
4.
a. Of time: Present or next adjacent; of things: Pertaining to the time current or instant.
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > relative time > the present (time) > [adjective]
present1340
nowa1393
presentary?a1425
unrun1474
modernc1485
hodiern?a1513
actual1525
modernal1542
instantc1550
this1582
immediate1605
current1608
nowadays1609
nowaday1632
hodiernal1656
living1659
running1659
daily1663
existent1676
existing1827
present-day1833
presential1878
today1908
1605 F. Bacon Of Aduancem. Learning i. sig. C2 Those of the later or immediate times. View more context for this quotation
a1641 R. Montagu Acts & Monuments (1642) 172 Equall with, or immediate unto the Apostolicall times.
1771 ‘Junius’ Stat Nominis Umbra (1772) II. xlix. 188 If the event had not disappointed the immediate schemes of the closet.
1845 M. Pattison in Christian Remembrancer Jan. 67 Our own immediate age is confessedly rich in works of the historical class.
1879 J. A. Froude Cæsar xv. 252 The immediate future was thus assured.
b. Occurring, accomplished, or taking effect without delay or lapse of time; done at once; instant.
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > relative time > immediacy > [adjective]
ferlyc893
cofc1000
swiftc1000
smarta1325
suddenc1390
undelayed1439
wightlaykec1450
short1480
present1489
indelayed1523
on or upon a (or the) sudden1558
immediate1569
instant1598
momentaneous1657
abrupt1725
presto1767
summary1771
momentary1799
pistolgraph1859
fast1863
1569 R. Grafton Chron. II. 1362 There was immediat order geuen to Edward Lorde Clynton..with all expedicion to prepare himselfe.
1586 A. Day Eng. Secretorie i. sig. L8v I did..at the first vse some delays in the immediate dispatche of the thing.
a1616 W. Shakespeare Measure for Measure (1623) v. i. 370 Immediate sentence then, and sequent death, Is all the grace I beg. View more context for this quotation
1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost vii. 176 Immediate are the Acts of God, more swift Then time or motion. View more context for this quotation
1748 T. Smollett Roderick Random I. viii. 51 Some loose silver for our immediate expence.
1774 C. J. Phipps Voy. N. Pole 64 The hopes we had..entertained of the immediate effect of an Easterly wind in clearing the bay.
1855 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 596 That he must either consent to an immediate surrender, or prepare for an immediate assault.
1899 N.E.D. at Immediate Mod. An immediate reply will oblige.
c. immediate access store: in a computer, a store whose access time is negligible compared with the time required for other operations.
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society > computing and information technology > hardware > [noun] > memory > defined by speed of access
fast store1952
immediate access store1960
scratch pad1965
1960 G. N. Lance Numerical Methods for High Speed Computers i. 5 The memory..can usually be separated into distinct parts. Firstly, there is the high-speed or immediate access store.
1964 F. L. Westwater Electronic Computers iv. 79 Magnetic core stores are often referred to as immediate access stores (I.A.S.).
5. That directly touches or concerns a person or thing; having a direct bearing.
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the world > relative properties > relationship > [adjective] > immediate or direct > immediate or having a direct bearing
immediate1725
1725 D. Defoe New Voy. round World ii. 166 They began to think of their more immediate Work.
1791 E. Burke Appeal New to Old Whigs 76 Their own more immediate and popular rights and privileges.
1816 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Canto III lxxvi. 43 But this is not my theme; and I return To that which is immediate.
1833 R. Browning Pauline 340 I rudely shaped my life To my immediate wants.
1878 R. B. Smith Carthage 28 She allowed her colonies to trade only so far as suited her own immediate interests.
1896 Duke of Argyll Philos. Belief 78 Any mere arrangement which is destitute of obvious or immediate utility.
ΚΠ
1634 T. Herbert Relation Some Yeares Trauaile 4 Teneriffa is thought to equall..in height..any other Land in the World, allowing its immediate ascent from the Ocean.
1634 T. Herbert Relation Some Yeares Trauaile 59 The immediate ascent is twenty two foot high.
(plural) Immediate acts or communications. Obsolete.
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the world > action or operation > manner of action > [noun] > specific manner of action or operation > direct action or operation > instances of
immediate1645
1645 S. Rutherford Tryal & Trivmph of Faith (1845) 382 Christ is speedy, and swift as a roe;..especially in his immediates.
(In some cases perhaps Latin immediātē, as formerly in French and Italian.) Immediately. Obsolete.
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the world > relative properties > order > order, sequence, or succession > preceding or following in order > [adverb] > immediately
belivea1375
nexta1375
immediately1466
immediate1532
the world > relative properties > relationship > [adverb] > immediately or directly
immediately1412
directly1526
amain1560
immediate1601
directedlya1641
proximately1668
proximally1897
1532 T. More Confut. Tyndale in Wks. 692/1 Hys other fower chapters immediate before.
1601 R. Johnson tr. G. Botero Trauellers Breuiat 82 Lord of those which hold of him immediate.
1626 F. Bacon Sylua Syluarum §366 Bodies enflamed, wholly, and Immediate.
Draft additions 1993
immediate address (Computing), an operand forming part of an instruction in immediate addressing; immediate addressing (Computing), the practice of using the address part of an instruction as the operand itself rather than its address.
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society > computing and information technology > programming language > program or code > [noun] > address > type of
absolute address1951
relative address1951
symbolic address1953
base address1958
indirect address1959
pointer1963
direct address1964
immediate address1964
vector address1975
referrer1995
society > computing and information technology > programming language > program or code > [noun] > address > systems of
indirect address1959
absolute addressing1960
relative addressing1960
direct addressing1963
immediate addressing1964
symbolic addressing1977
multi-addressing1982
1964 Gloss. Data Processing (Honeywell Inc.) 1/1 Immediate address.
1967 H. Hellerman Digital Computer System Princ. viii. 332 The first type of addressing..is called immediate (or sometimes literal) addressing: the operand is taken as the address part of the instruction.
1969 G. B. Davis Computer Data Processing 578 An ‘immediate address’ is not an address at all, but an operand supplied as part of an instruction.
1984 Byte Aug. 385/3 In the case of the immediate addressing mode with 16-bit data, one additional byte is required.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1899; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.adv.1532