Pressing

How to spell pressing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pressing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pressing mean?

1. adjectiveRequiring immediate attention or action; urgent.
2. verbApplying steady force to something, or continuing to push or urge an action.
3. nounA quantity of something produced in a single operation, such as a run of vinyl records or a batch of juice.

Pressing in a sentence

• adjective

  The committee set aside the minor items to deal with more pressing matters.

• verb

  He kept pressing the doorbell until someone finally answered.

• noun

  Collectors pay a premium for the original pressing of that album.

• adjective

  A pressing deadline forced the team to work through the weekend.

• verb

  The lawyers were pressing for a quick settlement.

• noun

  The vineyard bottled the first pressing of the season's grapes.

Where does pressing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the verb 'press', which English took from the Old French presser in the 1300s. That French verb descended from the Latin pressare, a frequentative form meaning 'to press repeatedly', which itself came from premere, 'to press, squeeze, or push'. The same Latin premere lies behind a large family of English words, including 'pressure', 'compress', 'express', and 'impress', so the spelling is reassuringly regular once you connect them. The figurative sense, an issue that 'presses' on you and so demands immediate attention, grew naturally out of the literal idea of physical weight bearing down, and by the 1500s 'pressing' was already used to mean urgent. The noun sense, a single batch produced in one operation (of grapes, olives, or vinyl records), keeps the older mechanical meaning alive. The doubled 's' simply reflects the short vowel in the root and is the main thing a writer needs to remember.

How the word is built

• press (from Latin premere/pressare: to press)
• -ing (suffix forming adjectives, nouns, and present participles)