different between impress vs stir

English

Etymology

From Middle English impressen, from Latin impressus, perfect passive participle of imprimere (“to press into or upon, stick, stamp, or dig into”), from in (“in, upon”) + premere (“to press”).

Pronunciation

• (verb) enPR: ?mpr?s?, IPA^(key): /?m?p??s/

  Rhymes: -?s

• (noun) enPR: ?m?pr?s, IPA^(key): /??mp??s/
• Hyphenation: im?press

Verb

impress (third-person singular simple present impresses, present participle impressing, simple past and past participle impressed)

1. (transitive) To affect (someone) strongly and often favourably.

2. (intransitive) To make an impression, to be impressive.

3. (transitive) To produce a vivid impression of (something).

4. (transitive) To mark or stamp (something) using pressure.
5. To produce (a mark, stamp, image, etc.); to imprint (a mark or figure upon something).
6. (figuratively) To fix deeply in the mind; to present forcibly to the attention, etc.; to imprint; to inculcate.

   • impress the motives and methods of persuasion upon our own hearts, till we feel the force and power of them.

7. (transitive) To compel (someone) to serve in a military force.

8. (transitive) To seize or confiscate (property) by force.

   • the second £5,000 imprest for the service of the sick and wounded prisoners

Synonyms

• (transitive: affect strongly and often favourably): make an impression on
• (intransitive: make an impression, be impressive): cut a figure
• (produce a vivid impression of):
• (mark or stamp (something) using pressure): imprint, print, stamp
• (compel (someone) to serve in a military force):: pressgang
• (seize or confiscate (property) by force):: confiscate, impound, seize, sequester

Translations

Noun

impress (plural impresses)

1. The act of impressing.
2. An impression; an impressed image or copy of something.
   • 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 […]

3. A stamp or seal used to make an impression.
4. 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 […]

5. Characteristic; mark of distinction; stamp.

   • we have God surveying the works of the creation, and leaving this general impress or character upon them

6. A heraldic device; an impresa.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Cussans to this entry?)
7. The act of impressing, or taking by force for the public service; compulsion to serve; also, that which is impressed.

Translations

Derived terms

• impressed
• impression
• impressive
• impressively

Further reading

• impress in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• impress in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• impress at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Persism, mispers, permiss, premiss, simpers

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /st??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /st?/
• Rhymes: -??(?)

Etymology 1

From Middle English stiren, sturien, from Old English styrian (“to be in motion, move, agitate, stir, disturb, trouble”), from Proto-Germanic *sturiz (“turmoil, noise, confusion”), related to Proto-Germanic *staurijan? (“to destroy, disturb”). Cognate with Old Norse styrr (“turmoil, noise, confusion”), German stören (“to disturb”), Dutch storen (“to disturb”).

Verb

stir (third-person singular simple present stirs, present participle stirring, simple past and past participle stirred)

1. (transitive) To incite to action

   Synonyms: arouse, instigate, prompt, excite; see also Thesaurus:incite
2. (transitive) To disturb the relative position of the particles of, a liquid of suchlike, by passing something through it

   Synonym: agitate
3. (transitive) To agitate the content of (a container), by passing something through it.

4. (transitive) To bring into debate; to agitate; to moot.
5. (transitive, dated) To change the place of in any manner; to move.
6. (intransitive) To move; to change one’s position.
7. (intransitive) To be in motion; to be active or bustling; to exert or busy oneself.
8. (intransitive) To become the object of notice; to be on foot.
9. (intransitive, poetic) To rise, or be up and about, in the morning.

   Synonyms: arise, get up, rouse; see also Thesaurus:wake

   • “Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins,” remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: “Mon dieu! Mon dieu! Che fais mourir!”

For more quotations using this term, see Citations:stir.

Usage notes

• In all transitive senses except the dated one (“to change the place of in any manner”), stir is often followed by up with an intensive effect; as, to stir up fire; to stir up sedition.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

stir (countable and uncountable, plural stirs)

1. The act or result of stirring (moving around the particles of a liquid etc.)

2. agitation; tumult; bustle; noise or various movements.
   • 1668, John Denham, Of Prudence (poem).

     Why all these words, this clamour, and this stir?

   • .

     Consider, after so much stir about genus and species, how few words we have yet settled definitions of.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:stir.
3. Public disturbance or commotion; tumultuous disorder; seditious uproar.
   • 1612, Sir John Davies, Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued

     Being advertised of some stirs raised by his unnatural sons in England.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:stir.
4. Agitation of thoughts; conflicting passions.

Derived terms

• cause a stir
• stirless
• upstir

Translations

Etymology 2

From Romani stariben (“prison”), nominalisation of (a)star (“seize”), causative of ast (“remain”), probably from Sanskrit ???????? (?ti??hati, “stand or remain by”), from ??????? (ti??hati, “stand”).

Noun

stir (countable and uncountable, plural stirs)

1. (slang) Jail; prison.
   • 1928, Jack Callahan, Man's Grim Justice: My Life Outside the Law (page 42)

     Sing Sing was a tough joint in those days, one of the five worst stirs in the United States.

   • The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

Derived terms

• stir-crazy

Anagrams

• ISTR, RTIs, Rist, TRIS, TRIs, Tris, rits, sirt, tris, tris-

Danish

Verb

stir

1. imperative of stirre