Picture a metal seal pressed hard into warm wax: you push it in, lift it away, and the wax now carries the shape. The seal is gone; the mark stays. One way to hold the whole word is that single action - pressing a shape into something soft enough to keep it. English then takes one step further: the soft thing that keeps the mark can be wax, or metal, or a person's mind.
From the word’s history
From Latin imprimere 'press into or upon, stamp', from in- 'into, upon' + premere 'to press'; it came into English in the late 14th century as impressen, via Old French empresser. Etymonline notes that the mental sense - 'have a strong effect on the mind or heart, stamp deeply in the mind' - stood beside the literal one from the very beginning, so the pressing picture is not a later add-on.
impress 來自拉丁文 imprimere（in-「進去、在上面」+ premere「壓」），字面就是「壓進去、蓋上印」，十四世紀末經古法文 empresser 進入英文。有意思的是，「在心裡壓下深刻痕跡」這層意思從一開始就跟「在物體上壓出印」並存，不是後來才附加的比喻。知道這一點，就比較容易看出 impress the judges（讓評審印象深刻）跟 impress a pattern on metal（在金屬上壓花紋）其實是同一個動作，只是被壓的東西不同。
Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com), entry 'impress (v.)'
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料15 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
impressverb/ɪmˈpɹɛs/
- 1
To affect (someone) strongly and often favourably.
- You impressed me with your command of Urdu.
- 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.
- 2
To make an impression, to be impressive.
- Henderson impressed in his first game as captain.
- 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.
- 3
To produce a vivid impression of (something).
- That first view of the Eiger impressed itself on my mind.
- 4
To mark or stamp (something) using pressure.
- We impressed our footprints in the wet cement.
- 5
To produce (a mark, stamp, image, etc.); to imprint (a mark or figure upon something).
- 6
To fix deeply in the mind; to present forcibly to the attention, etc.; to imprint; to inculcate.
- impress the motives and methods of persuasion upon our own hearts, till we feel the force and power of them.
- 7
To compel (someone) to serve in a military force.
- The press gang used to impress people into the Navy.
- 8
To seize or confiscate (property) by force.
- The liner was impressed as a troop carrier.
- the second £5,000 imprest for the service of the sick and wounded prisoners
impressnoun/ˈɪmpɹɛs/
- 1
The act of impressing.
- 2
An impression; an impressed image or copy of something.
- This weak impress of love is as a figure / Trenched in ice.
- 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.
- 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.
- we have God surveying the works of the creation, and leaving this general impress or character upon them
- As he himself [Sir Nigel Gresley] would doubtless have wished, he died in harness; only a few weeks previously he had been present at the first public view of his latest design, the Bantam Cock, which, like most of his products, bore all over it the impress of his personality.
- 6
A heraldic device; an impresa.
- It commonly occurred that Knights who , on entering the Lists , wished to conceal their identity , would assume a Device with an allusive Motto , which was designated an IMPRESS
- 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.
- Why such impress of shipwrights?
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。