Hugh Seton-WatsonB. N. Cardozo
Did you know?
Impute is a formal word typically used in contexts in which a motive, act, or emotion is credited or ascribed to someone, especially falsely or unfairly. For example, if you impute dishonesty to someone you’re asserting that they’re not telling the truth. And if you impute selfish motives to someone’s actions you’re asserting that they were motivated by selfishness. In the form imputed the word is often paired with income: imputed income is income calculated from the supposed value of intangible or non-cash sources, such as use of a company car, or an employee discount. What’s the connection between these meanings? Both involve considering someone or something in a particular way, tying each meaning to the word’s Latin ancestor: putare means “to consider.”
Examples of impute in a Sentence
Eva Roytburg, Fortune, 24 Oct. 2025
That data is then preprocessed by imputing gaps, flagging outliers and normalizing signals.
—Nagesh Nama, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
That imputes a total cost of $566 million.
—Thomas Gounley, Denver Post, 4 Sep. 2025
Estimates are that some 35% of BLS data for its price reports is affected in some way by imputing.
—Jeff Cox, CNBC, 11 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for impute
Cite this Entry
“Impute.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/impute. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
impute
verb
Legal Definition
impute
transitive verb
Share