Other forms: impressed, impressing, impresses
Impress means to make someone think well of you — you do something well enough that they notice and admire it. You impress an interviewer with one clear answer, you impress your mother by cooking dinner, and you impress nobody at all by talking about your car.
The passive is where you will meet it most: I was impressed by her calm. Impressed takes BY or WITH, and the noun is impression — you make a good impression, never a good impress. There is a second, older meaning of pressing a shape into a surface: a seal impressed into wax, a pattern impressed on metal. From that comes impress something ON or UPON someone, which is to press an idea into their mind until it stays there. Impressive describes the thing that did the work; impressionable describes a person who is far too easy to impress.
1verbimpressTo make someone admire you or think well of you.
“She impressed the whole panel with how calmly she answered.”
synonyms: dazzle, wow
2verbpressTo press a mark or pattern into a surface.
“The design is impressed into the leather while it is still damp.”
3verbfixTo fix an idea firmly in someone's mind.
“My father impressed on me the importance of arriving early.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Impress came through Middle English impressen from Latin impressus, the participle of imprimere — to press into or upon, to stamp or dig into. That verb is in ('upon') plus premere ('to press'). The original act was physical: a seal pushed into soft wax. When you impress someone today, you are still leaving a mark on them.
Latin
impressus
Middle English
impressen
English, today
impress
Built from
From Middle English impressen, from Latin impressus. 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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA