Meaning & use
impress
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Meanings
verbtransitive or intransitive
To make someone feel admiration or respect through skill, effort or qualities.
Grammar: Usually takes a person as object: impress the judges; can stand alone: dress to impress.
Patterns
- impress someone
- impress someone with something
She impressed her manager with her quick thinking.
The young pianist impressed the audience.
He wore a suit to impress.
verbtransitive
To make someone realize how serious or important something is.
Grammar: Often followed by on: impress something on someone.
Patterns
- impress something on someone
- impress on someone that
My parents impressed on me the value of honesty.
The coach impressed upon the team the need to stay calm.
She tried to impress the danger on the children.
verbtransitiveformal
To press a mark or pattern firmly into a surface.
Grammar: Takes an object and often into or on: impress a seal into wax.
Patterns
- impress something into something
- impress something on something
He impressed his seal into the soft wax.
The machine impresses a pattern into the leather.
Footprints were impressed in the wet cement.
verbtransitivearchaic
To force someone into military service, especially in the past.
Grammar: Historical; usually in the passive.
Patterns
- impress someone into something
Sailors were often impressed into the navy.
The captain impressed several fishermen as crew.
Historians describe how men were impressed against their will.
Word forms
| third person singular | impresses |
|---|---|
| past tense | impressed |
| past participle | impressed |
| -ing form | impressing |
Common combinations
- impress someone with
- He tried to impress her with his cooking.
- deeply impress
- The speech deeply impressed the crowd.
- impress upon
- I must impress upon you how serious this is.
- hard to impress
- My grandmother is hard to impress.
- dress to impress
- She dressed to impress for the interview.
Synonyms and how they differ
- wow
- Wow is informal and means to impress strongly or excite.
- inspire
- Inspire suggests stirring someone to action or feeling, not just admiring.
- awe
- Awe suggests deep respect mixed with wonder and is stronger than impress.
- stamp
- Stamp is the physical sense of pressing a mark into something.
Opposites
Word family
- impression noun
- an opinion or feeling formed about someone or something
- impressive adjective
- causing admiration
- impressed adjective
- feeling admiration
- impressively adverb
- in a way that causes admiration
Commonly confused: impress or express?
impress vs express
Express means to say or show a feeling; impress means to affect someone's opinion or to press into something.
Practice
She worked late every night to ______ her new boss.
Choose one answer.
Impress means to win admiration. Depress means to make sad, which doesn't fit working hard to gain favor.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “impress”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.