"Significance" vs "Importance"

[Tom]

Hi

Could you please tell me the difference between:

1- What is the significance of this thing?
2- What is the importance of this thing?

Tom

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

There often isn't much difference between significance and importance.

A difference that comes to mind is that sometimes the word "significance" is used to mean "meaning" or "implication".

Amy
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Alan]

Hi Tom,

To add further comment:

The importance of an event or an occasion is how worthwhile it is in the scheme of things.

The significance of an event or an occasion is the underlying meaning or interpretation of it.

I could refer these two words to the visits currently being undertaken in the Middle East by the American Secretary of State. The importance of her visits indicates the high value she puts on the necessity to do something to find a solution to the fighting. The significance of her visits is the interpretation put on them by the rest of the world or how the rest of the world sees them.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Make or Do?