Verb

(penetrat)

To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.

Light penetrates darkness.

* {{quote-book, year=1879, title=The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph

, author=Th Du Moncel, page=166, publisher=Harper , passage=He takes the prepared charcoal used by artists, brings it to a white heat, and suddenly plunges it in a bath of mercury, of which the globules instantly penetrate the pores of charcoal, and may be said to metallize it.}}

(figuratively) To achieve understanding of, despite some obstacle; to comprehend; to understand.

I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.

* Ray

things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate

To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to move deeply.

to penetrate one's heart with pity

* M. Arnold

The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style.

(Shakespeare)

To infiltrate an enemy to gather intelligence.

To insert the penis into an opening, such as a vagina or anus. (rfex)

Verb

(imping)

To make a physical impact (on); to collide, to crash (upon).

* , vol.1, New York Review Books, 2001, p.287:

The ordinary rocks upon which such men do impinge and precipitate themselves, are cards, dice, hawks, and hounds […].

(figuratively) To interfere with; to encroach (on, upon).

*

To have an effect upon; to limit.

* {{quote-book, year=1913, author=

, chapter=4, title= Lord Stranleigh Abroad , passage=“I have tried, as I hinted, to enlist the co-operation of other capitalists, but experience has taught me that any appeal is futile that does not impinge directly upon cupidity. …”}}