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Dazzle vs Impress - What's the difference?

dazzle | impress |

In lang=en terms the difference between dazzle and impress

is that dazzle is to be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness while impress is to seize or confiscate (property) by force.

As verbs the difference between dazzle and impress

is that dazzle is to confuse the sight of by means of excessive brightness while impress is to affect (someone) strongly and often favourably.

As nouns the difference between dazzle and impress

is that dazzle is a light of dazzling brilliancy while impress is the act of impressing .

dazzle

English

Verb

(dazzl)
  • To confuse the sight of by means of excessive brightness.
  • Dazzled by the headlights of the lorry, the deer stopped in the middle of the street.
  • * Milton
  • Those heavenly shapes / Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze / Insufferably bright.
  • * Sir H. Taylor
  • An unreflected light did never yet / Dazzle the vision feminine.
  • (figuratively) To render incapable of thinking clearly; to overwhelm with showiness or brilliance.
  • The delegates were dazzled by the originality of his arguments.
  • To be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • An overlight maketh the eyes dazzle .
  • * Dryden
  • I dare not trust these eyes; / They dance in mists, and dazzle with surprise.

    Derived terms

    * dazzler * dazzlement

    Noun

    (s)
  • A light of dazzling brilliancy.
  • (uncommon) A herd of zebra.
  • * 1958', Laurens Van der Post, ''The lost world of the Kalahari: with the great and the little memory'' (' 1998 David Coulson edition):
  • We were trying to stalk a dazzle of zebra which flashed in and out of a long strip of green and yellow fever trees, with an ostrich, its feathers flared like a ballet skirt around its dancing legs, on their flank, when suddenly
  • * 2009 , Darren Paul Shearer, In You God Trusts , page 176:
  • Zebras move in herds which are known as "dazzles." When a lion approaches a dazzle of zebras during its hunt,
  • * 2010 , Douglas Rogers, The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa , page 22:
  • I reached the lodge as a dazzle of zebras trotted across the dirt road into thorny scrub by the game fence, and a lone kudu gazed up at me from the short grass near the swimming pool.

    Synonyms

    * herd

    impress

    English

    Verb

    (es)
  • To affect (someone) strongly and often favourably.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=5 citation , passage=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.}}
  • To make an impression, to be impressive.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=September 7, author=Phil McNulty, title=Moldova 0-5 England
  • , work=BBC Sport citation , passage=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.}}
  • To produce a vivid impression of (something).
  • To mark or stamp (something) using pressure.
  • * Shakespeare
  • his heart, like an agate, with your print impressed
  • To produce (a mark, stamp, image, etc.); to imprint (a mark or figure upon something).
  • (figurative) To fix deeply in the mind; to present forcibly to the attention, etc.; to imprint; to inculcate.
  • * I. Watts
  • Impress the motives of persuasion upon our own hearts till we feel the force of them.
  • To compel (someone) to serve in a military force.
  • To seize or confiscate (property) by force.
  • * Evelyn
  • the second five thousand pounds impressed for the service of the sick and wounded prisoners

    Synonyms

    * make an impression on * cut a figure * (produce a vivid impression of) * imprint, print, stamp * : pressgang * : confiscate, impound, seize, sequester

    Noun

    (es)
  • The act of impressing.
  • An impression; an impressed image or copy of something.
  • * Shakespeare
  • 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
  • A stamp or seal used to make an impression.
  • 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
  • Characteristic; mark of distinction; stamp.
  • (South)
  • A heraldic device; an impresa.
  • (Cussans)
  • * Milton
  • To describe emblazoned shields, / Impresses quaint.
  • The act of impressing, or taking by force for the public service; compulsion to serve; also, that which is impressed.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Why such impress of shipwrights?