Wichtig

Wichtig is a German adjective meaning important or significant. It is used to describe topics, decisions, people, or events that warrant attention, and it can express varying degrees of urgency or relevance depending on the context.

In everyday language, wichtig appears in attributive position before the noun (das wichtige Thema) and in predicative constructions (Es ist wichtig). It forms many common phrases such as eine wichtige Rolle spielen, eine wichtige Entscheidung treffen, und von größerer Bedeutung sein. The word is widely used in media, academia, business, and everyday speech, with synonyms including bedeutsam, wesentlich, relevant, and bedeutungsvoll.

Historically, wichtig belongs to a class of adjectives formed with the suffix -ig; its precise origin traces to Germanic roots. For general use, detailed etymology is not required.

Nominalized use: das Wichtige, meaning “the important thing,” or das Wichtigste, meaning “the most important thing,” are common forms in German when the adjective is treated as a noun. See also related terms such as Bedeutung (meaning), Relevanz (relevance), and Wesentlichkeit (essentiality).