Immanent or imminent?
immanent is an adjective meaning “Naturally part of something; existing throughout and within something; intrinsic”; imminent is an adjective meaning “About to happen, occur, or take place very soon, especially of something which…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) imminent is about 25 times as common as immanent.
What is the difference between immanent and imminent?
| immanent | imminent | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective |
| Meaning | Naturally part of something; existing throughout and within something; intrinsic Of something which has always already been | About to happen, occur, or take place very soon, especially of something which won't last long |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Pronunciation | /ˈɪmənənt/ | /ˈɪmɪnənt/ [ˈɪmɪnənt] /ˈɪmənənt/ |
| In writing | about once in every 5 million words | 4.7 times per million words |
Sources: immanent and imminent in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of immanent and imminent
immanent
- 1
Naturally part of something; existing throughout and within something; intrinsic
- 2
Of something which has always already been
- 3
Restricted entirely to the mind or a given domain; internal; subjective
- 4
Existing within and throughout the mind and the world; dwelling within and throughout all things, all time, etc. Compare transcendent
- 5
Taking place entirely within the mind of the subject and having no effect outside it. Compare emanant, transeunt
- 6
Within the limits of experience or knowledge
imminent
- 1
About to happen, occur, or take place very soon, especially of something which won't last long
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, immanent or imminent?
immanent appears about once in every 5 million words; imminent 4.7 times per million words.
immanent about once in every 5 million wordsimminent 4.7 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search immanent vs imminent?
“immanent vs imminent” is searched about 1,600 times a month on Google and 190 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“imminent vs immanent”, “immanent or imminent”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.