IMPRESS • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Impress

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/ɪmprˈɛs/ /ˈɪmprˌɛs/ Listen

verb

Impress v. t. (past & past part. impressed; pres. part. impressing)

1.

To press, stamp, or print something in or upon; to mark by pressure, or as by pressure; to imprint (that which bears the impression). "His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed."

2.

To produce by pressure, as a mark, stamp, image, etc.; to imprint (a mark or figure upon something).

3.

Fig.: To fix deeply in the mind; to present forcibly to the attention, etc.; to imprint; to inculcate. "Impress the motives of persuasion upon our own hearts till we feel the force of them."

4.

To take by force for public service; as, to impress sailors or money. "The second five thousand pounds impressed for the service of the sick and wounded prisoners."

Impress v. i. To be impressed; to rest. (Obs.) "Such fiendly thoughts in his heart impress."

noun

Impress n. (pl. impresses)

1.

The act of impressing or making.

2.

A mark made by pressure; an indentation; imprint; the image or figure of anything, formed by pressure or as if by pressure; result produced by pressure or influence. "The impresses of the insides of these shells." "This weak impress of love is as a figure Trenched in ice."

3.

Characteristic; mark of distinction; stamp.

4.

A device. See Impresa. "To describe... emblazoned shields, Impresses quaint."

5.

The act of impressing, or taking by force for the public service; compulsion to serve; also, that which is impressed. "Why such impress of shipwrights?"

Impress gang, a party of men, with an officer, employed to impress seamen for ships of war; a press gang.

Impress money, a sum of money paid, immediately upon their entering service, to men who have been impressed.

See images of 'Impress'

Etymology of 'Impress'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Impress" Quotes from Famous Books

... tea-pot and some spoons which had been left in the room on the previous evening are gone,—the window is open, and you observe the mark of a dirty hand on the window-frame, and perhaps, in addition to that, you notice the impress of a hob-nailed shoe on the gravel outside. All these phenomena have struck your attention instantly, and before two minutes have passed you say, "Oh, somebody has broken open the window, entered the room, and run off with the spoons and the tea-pot!" That speech is ...

— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... then could have cried with mortification, for all of the great soldiers laughed at me. One of them turned, and said to the only one who was seated, "That is Hamilton's grandson." The man who was seated did not impress me very much. He was younger than the others. He wore a black suit and a black tie, and the three upper buttons of his waistcoat were unfastened. His beard was close-cropped, like a blacking-brush, and he was chewing on a cigar that had burned so far down that I remember wondering ...

— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... She wore her own gray hair; and her complexion bore the test of daylight. On entering the room, she made her apologies with some embarrassment. Being the embarrassment of a stranger (and not of a youthful stranger), it failed to impress ...

— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda. Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on through the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey side. The locality did not impress me favorably. There was an abundance of "pubs" and of fried-fish shops where "jellied eels" seemed to be a ...

— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... modelled in its best features on the Hellenic, that it was essentially weak and unprogressive and, except in religion (where it held great sway) and in the sphere of public amusements, unable permanently to impress itself upon Rome. [4] Thus the literary epoch dates from the conquest of Magna Graecia. After the fall of Tarentum the Romans were suddenly familiarised with the chief products of the Hellenic mind; and the first Punic war which followed, unlike all previous wars, was favourable ...

— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

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