Impose vs Impress - What's the difference?
impose | impress |
To establish or apply by authority.
* Milton
* 2012 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, "[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/nyregion/new-jersey-continues-to-cope-with-hurricane-sandy.html?hp]," New York Times (retrieved 31 October 2012):
to be an inconvenience
to enforce: compel to behave in a certain way
* {{quote-news
, year=2011
, date=December 10
, author=Arindam Rej
, title=Norwich 4 - 2 Newcastle
, work=BBC Sport
To practice a trick or deception.
To lay on, as the hands, in the religious rites of confirmation and ordination.
To arrange in proper order on a table of stone or metal and lock up in a chase for printing; said of columns or pages of type, forms, etc.
To affect (someone) strongly and often favourably.
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=5 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 To produce a vivid impression of (something).
To mark or stamp (something) using pressure.
* Shakespeare
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
To compel (someone) to serve in a military force.
To seize or confiscate (property) by force.
* Evelyn
The act of impressing.
An impression; an impressed image or copy of something.
* Shakespeare
* 1908 , Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans , Norton 2005, p. 1330:
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:
Characteristic; mark of distinction; stamp.
A heraldic device; an impresa.
* Milton
The act of impressing, or taking by force for the public service; compulsion to serve; also, that which is impressed.
* Shakespeare
In transitive terms the difference between impose and impress
is that impose is to establish or apply by authority while impress is to seize or confiscate (property) by force.In intransitive terms the difference between impose and impress
is that impose is to be an inconvenience while impress is to make an impression, to be impressive.As a noun impress is
the act of impressing.impose
English
Verb
(impos)- Death is the penalty imposed .
- Congress imposed new tariffs.
- Localities across New Jersey imposed curfews to prevent looting. In Monmouth, Ocean and other counties, people waited for hours for gasoline at the few stations that had electricity. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare.
- I don't wish to impose upon you.
- Social relations impose courtesy
citation, page= , passage=Norwich soon began imposing themselves on that patched-up defence with Holt having their best early chance, only to see it blocked by Simpson.}}
Derived terms
* imposition * superimpose * imposureExternal links
* * *impress
English
Verb
(es)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.}}
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.}}
- his heart, like an agate, with your print impressed
- Impress the motives of persuasion upon our own hearts till we feel the force of them.
- 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, sequesterNoun
(es)- 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
- Such admonitions, in the English of the Authorized Version, left an indelible impress on imaginations nurtured on the Bible
- (South)
- (Cussans)
- To describe emblazoned shields, / Impresses quaint.
- Why such impress of shipwrights?