Noah Webster
Importance
IMPORT'ANCE, noun
1. Weight; consequence; a bearing on some interest; that quality of any thing by which it may affect a measure, interest or result. The education of youth is of great importance to a free government. A religious education is of infinite importance to every human being.
2. Weight or consequence in the scale of being.
Thy own importance know.
Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.
3. Weight or consequence in self-estimation.
He believes himself a man of importance
4. Thing implied; matter; subject; importunity. [In these senses, obsolete.]