express

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English [edit]

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Pronunciation [edit]

Etymology 1 [edit]

From French exprès, from Latin expressus, past participle of exprimere (see Etymology 2, below).

Adjective [edit]

express (comparative more express, superlative most express)

  1. (not comparable) Moving or operating quickly, as a train not making local stops.
    • 1931, Francis Beeding, chapter 1/1, Death Walks in Eastrepps[1]:
      The train was moving less fast through the summer night. The swift express had changed into something almost a parliamentary, had stopped three times since Norwich, and now, at long last, was approaching Banton.
  2. (comparable) Specific or precise.
    I gave him express instructions not to begin until I arrived, but he ignored me.
  3. Truly depicted; exactly resembling.
    In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance.
Synonyms [edit]
Antonyms [edit]
Translations [edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Noun [edit]

express (plural expresses)

  1. A mode of transportation, often a train, that travels quickly or directly.
    I took the express into town.
  2. An express rifle.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of H. Rider Haggard - King Solomon's Mines to this entry?)
Synonyms [edit]
Antonyms [edit]
Translations [edit]

Etymology 2 [edit]

From Old French espresser, expresser, from frequentative form of Latin exprimere.

Verb [edit]

express (third-person singular simple present expresses, present participle expressing, simple past and past participle expressed)

  1. (transitive) To convey or communicate; to make known or explicit.
    Words cannot express the love I feel for him.
  2. (transitive) To press, squeeze out (especially said of milk).
    • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 13
      The people of his island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl [...].
  3. (biochemistry) To translate messenger RNA into protein.
  4. (biochemistry) To transcribe deoxyribonucleic acid into messenger RNA.
Synonyms [edit]
Translations [edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Related terms [edit]

Noun [edit]

express (plural expresses)

  1. (obsolete) The action of conveying some idea using words or actions; communication, expression.
    • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, V.20:
      Whereby they discoursed in silence, and were intuitively understood from the theory of their expresses.
  2. (obsolete) A specific statement or instruction.
    • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, II.5:
      This Gentleman [...] caused a man to go down no less than a hundred fathom, with express to take notice whether it were hard or soft in the place where it groweth.