impaction
/ɪmˈpækʃən/noun
impaction is a noun meaning “A compression; the packing together of loose matter” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled I-M-P-A-C-T-I-O-N, and it appears about once in every 12 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of impaction is impactions.
What does impaction mean?
noun
- 1
A compression; the packing together of loose matter.
- 2
Something packed together tightly; a mass of densely-packed matter.
- 3
A solid, immobile bulk of stool.
- 4
The failure of a tooth to erupt into the dental arch, because of adjacent teeth, dense overlying bone, excessive soft tissue, or other factor.
- 5
The situation where an institute, usually a college or university, receives more applications from qualified applicants than the number of spaces available, meaning that meeting the minimum admission requirements does not guarantee acceptance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce impaction?
- /ɪmˈpækʃən/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-impaction.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of impaction
- impactions plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is impaction?
Impaction appears about once in every 12 million words in written English, the 103,949th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Impaction in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense failure of a tooth to erupt:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | enclavement, inclusion |
| Portuguese | impactação, retenção |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does impaction come from?
From Latin impingere (“to dash against, impinge”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).