impress

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English impressen, from Latin impressus, perfect passive participle of imprimere ‎(“to press into or upon, stick, stamp, or dig into”), from in ‎(“in, upon”) + premere ‎(“to press”).

Verb[edit]

impress ‎(third-person singular simple present impresses, present participle impressing, simple past and past participle impressed)

  1. (transitive) To affect (someone) strongly and often favourably.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess[1]:
      Mr. Campion appeared suitably impressed and she warmed to him. He was very easy to talk to with those long clown lines in his pale face, a natural goon, born rather too early she suspected.
    You impressed me with your command of Urdu.‎
  2. (intransitive) To make an impression, to be impressive.
    • 2012 September 7, Phil McNulty, “Moldova 0-5 England”, in BBC Sport[2]:
      Manchester United's Tom Cleverley impressed on his first competitive start and Lampard demonstrated his continued worth at international level in a performance that was little more than a stroll once England swiftly exerted their obvious authority.
    Henderson impressed in his first game as captain.‎
  3. (transitive) To produce a vivid impression of (something).
    That first view of the Eiger impressed itself on my mind.‎
  4. (transitive) To mark or stamp (something) using pressure.
    We impressed our footprints in the wet cement.‎
    • Shakespeare
      his heart, like an agate, with your print impressed
  5. To produce (a mark, stamp, image, etc.); to imprint (a mark or figure upon something).
  6. (figuratively) To fix deeply in the mind; to present forcibly to the attention, etc.; to imprint; to inculcate.
    • I. Watts
      Impress the motives of persuasion upon our own hearts till we feel the force of them.
  7. (transitive) To compel (someone) to serve in a military force.
    The press gang used to impress people into the Navy.‎
  8. (transitive) To seize or confiscate (property) by force.
    The liner was impressed as a troop carrier.‎
    • Evelyn
      the second five thousand pounds impressed for the service of the sick and wounded prisoners

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Noun[edit]

impress ‎(plural impresses)

  1. The act of impressing.
  2. An impression; an impressed image or copy of something.
    • Shakespeare
      This weak impress of love is as a figure / Trenched in ice.
    • 1908, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, Norton 2005, p. 1330:
      We know that you were pressed for money, that you took an impress of the keys which your brother held […]
  3. A stamp or seal used to make an impression.
  4. An impression on the mind, imagination etc.
    • 2007, John Burrow, A History of Histories, Penguin 2009, p. 187:
      Such admonitions, in the English of the Authorized Version, left an indelible impress on imaginations nurtured on the Bible […]
  5. Characteristic; mark of distinction; stamp.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of South to this entry?)
  6. A heraldic device; an impresa.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Cussans to this entry?)
    • Milton
      To describe […] emblazoned shields, / Impresses quaint.
  7. The act of impressing, or taking by force for the public service; compulsion to serve; also, that which is impressed.
    • Shakespeare
      Why such impress of shipwrights?

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