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Immediate

1. Not separated in respect to place by anything intervening; proximate; close; as, immediate contact. You are the most immediate to our throne. (Shak)

2. Not deferred by an interval of time; present; instant. Assemble we immediate council. Death . . . Not yet inflicted, as he feared, By some immediate stroke. (Milton)

3. Acting with nothing interposed or between, or without the intervention of another object as a cause, means, or agency; acting, perceived, or produced, directly; as, an immediate cause. The immediate knowledge of the past is therefore impossible. (Sir. W.

(Science: surgery) Hamilton) immediate amputation, an amputation performed within the first few hours after an injury, and before the the effects of the shock have passed away.

Synonym: proximate, close, direct, next.

Origin: f. Immediat. See in- not, and mediate.