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Impress vs Prefer - What's the difference?

impress | prefer |

As verbs the difference between impress and prefer

is that impress is to affect (someone) strongly and often favourably while prefer is .

As a noun impress

is the act of impressing .

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?

    prefer

    English

    Alternative forms

    * * preferre

    Verb

    (preferr)
  • *, II.3.2:
  • *:Tiberius preferred many to honours in his time, because they were famous whoremasters and sturdy drinkers.
  • (lb) To be in the habit of choosing something rather than something else; to favor; to like better.
  • :
  • *
  • *:"My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects;."
  • (lb) To present or submit (something) to an authority (now usually in "to prefer charges").
  • *1630 , , True Travels , in Kupperman 1988, p.36:
  • *:one Master David Hume, who making some use of his purse, gave him Letters to his friends in Scotland to preferre him to King James.
  • *1817 , (Walter Scott), , XVII:
  • *:Such were the arguments which my will boldly preferred to my conscience, as coin which ought to be current, and which conscience, like a grumbling shopkeeper, was contented to accept.
  • Usage notes

    * The verb can be used in three different forms: *
  • prefer'' + noun + ''to'' (or ''over'') + noun. Example: ''I prefer coffee to tea .
  • *
  • prefer'' + gerund + ''to'' (or ''over'') + gerund. Example: ''I prefer skiing to swimming .
  • *
  • prefer'' + full infinitive + ''rather than'' + bare infinitive. Example: ''I prefer to eat fish rather than (eat) meat .
  • Derived terms

    * preference * preferential