Imprint

How to spell imprint

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce imprint

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does imprint mean?

1. nounA mark or impression made by pressing something onto a surface, or a lasting effect left on something.
2. verbTo press a mark onto a surface, or to fix something firmly in the memory.

Imprint in a sentence

• noun

  The wet boots left a clear imprint on the kitchen floor.

• verb

  The machine can imprint a serial number on each metal panel.

• noun

  Her years abroad left a lasting imprint on the way she cooks.

• verb

  The safety drill is designed to imprint the route firmly in every employee's mind.

Where does imprint come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb imprimere, which combined in- meaning 'into' or 'upon' with premere meaning 'to press', so the literal sense was 'to press into' a surface. The Latin form passed into Old French as empreindre and its related noun empreinte, meaning a pressed mark or stamp, and Middle English borrowed it in the late 1300s, at first spelled with the French em- before settling on the Latin-looking im- prefix. Early uses described the physical act of pressing a seal or stamp into wax, and from there the meaning widened to printing with type and, figuratively, to fixing an idea firmly in the mind. The very same premere root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'press', 'impress', 'express' and 'pressure', which is a handy reminder that the trap is simply the single p after the m, not a doubled one. The publishing sense, an imprint being the name a publisher prints on a book, grew naturally out of the older idea of a mark stamped onto the page.

How the word is built

• im- (in, into, a form of in-)
• print (mark made by pressing, from Latin premere 'to press')