impress
Pronunciation
  • (verb) enPR: ĭmprĕsʹ, IPA: /ɪmˈpɹɛs/
  • (noun) enPR: ĭmʹprĕs, IPA: /ˈɪmpɹɛs/
Verb

impress (impresses, present participle impressing; past and past participle impressed)

  1. (transitive) To affect (someone) strongly and often favourably.
    You impressed me with your command of Urdu.
  2. (intransitive) To make an impression, to be impressive.
    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.
    • c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene i]:
      Gentle lady, / When I did first impart my love to you.
  5. To produce (a mark, stamp, image, etc.); to imprint (a mark or figure upon something).
  6. (figurative) 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.
  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.
    • the second five thousand pounds impressed for the service of the sick and wounded prisoners
Synonyms
  • (transitive: affect strongly and often favourably) make an impression on
  • (intransitive: make an impression, be impressive) cut a figure
  • (produce a vivid impression of)
  • (mark or stamp (something) using pressure) imprint, print, stamp
  • (compel (someone) to serve in a military force): pressgang
  • (seize or confiscate (property) by force): confiscate, impound, seize, sequester
Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Noun

impress (plural impresses)

  1. The act of impressing.
  2. An impression; an impressed image or copy of something.
    • c. 1590–1591, William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene ii]:
      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.
  6. A heraldic device; an impresa.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book 8”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:
      To describe […] emblazon'd Shields, / Impreses quaint.
  7. The act of impressing, or taking by force for the public service; compulsion to serve; also, that which is impressed.
    • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene i]:
      Why such impress of shipwrights?
Translations Translations
  • Russian: о́ттиск
Translations


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