European Union law

The thirty-third entry is la raison impérieuse d’intérêt général, and the adjective in the middle is the one an English reader should not carry across. « Imperious » in English describes a person and almost nothing else: a haughty manner, a voice used to being obeyed, a gesture that expects no answer. It is a judgement about character, and a reason cannot have one. French kept that sense too — un ton impérieux, un vieil homme impérieux — but it kept a second one that English let go, and the second is the one at work here. Set before a need, a necessity or a reason, impérieux says that the thing will not wait and cannot be argued with: un besoin impérieux, une nécessité impérieuse, des raisons impérieuses de sécurité. The English words for that are « compelling », « pressing » and, in the language of the institutions, « overriding », which is why this entry is an overriding reason in the public interest. Both branches grow out of Latin imperare, to command. English left the commanding with the person; French gave it to the circumstance as well.