imbrue
Americanverb (used with object)
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to stain.
He refused to imbrue his hands with the blood of more killing.
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to impregnate or imbue (usually followed by with orin ).
They are imbrued with the follies of youth.
verb
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to stain, esp with blood
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to permeate or impregnate
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of imbrue
1400–50; late Middle English enbrewen < Middle French embreuver to cause to drink in, soak, drench < Vulgar Latin *imbiberāre, derivative of Latin imbibere to imbibe
Explanation
To imbrue is to stain or saturate, the way water imbrues your jeans when you walk down the street in a rainstorm. Use this old-fashioned, literary verb when you need a fancy way to say "dampen" or "permeate." It's also frequently used in literature to specifically refer to things stained with blood: "The battle will only serve to imbrue their swords with blood." The word comes from the Old French embruer, "to moisten."
Vocabulary lists containing imbrue
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
If I had continued to imbrue myself either in bloody crimes or the fierce drunkenness of the life of the galleys, this salutary change would never have come over me I know full well.
From The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 4 of 6 by Eugène Sue
In another minute," said Berry, "I shall imbrue this omelet with tears.
From Jonah and Co. by Dornford Yates
The citizen of heaven knew that it was his duty to 'hunt Sarmatians' on earth, though he was not obliged to imbrue his hands with 'Cæsarism.'
From Outspoken Essays by William Ralph Inge
The hazards attending my re-entrance were to be boldly encountered, and the torments of unsatisfied thirst were to be patiently endured, rather than imbrue my hands in the blood of my fellowmen.
From Edgar Huntly or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker by Charles Brockden Brown
He took a comprehensive glance about the room; then, extracting a dish from he closet, proceeded to imbrue his hands in the strawberries' blood.
From A Modern Cinderella Or, the Little Old Shoe and Other Stories by Louisa May Alcott
Trained by years of experience in a Court where intrigue imbrued the very atmosphere, ordinarily he was equal to any emergency.
From Beatrix of Clare by Clarence F. Underwood
Deluded by the notion that I was playing with a fancy, I was suddenly aroused to find myself imbrued in facts.
From David Poindexter's Disappearance, and Other Tales by Julian Hawthorne
It had stripped its mistress clean of all feeble accomplishments; her hands were imbrued neither with ink nor with water-color.
From The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James
Lo, Phædra, Procris, Eriphyle there, Baring the breast by filial hands imbrued, Evadne, and Pasiphaë, and fair Laodamia in the crowd he viewed, 523 And Cæneus, maid, then man, and now a maid renewed.
From The Æneid of Virgil Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor by Edward Fairfax Taylor
There is not perhaps a single riot, a single religious outrage in which the middle-classes were not formerly imbrued, because these middle classes were then the mob; but reason and time will have changed them.
From Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire
In strongly asserting this traditional law, the Inquisitors imagined that they thereby freed themselves from all responsibility, and kept from imbruing their hands in bloodshed.
From The Inquisition A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church by Bertrand L. (Bertrand Louis) Conway
Barnwell, instead of imbruing his hands in innocent blood, even "in jest," became the most active agent in rescuing his hapless audience from their perilous situation.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 10 by Various
Now she saw that the woman’s oily diplomacy was only for public use, and that all the while she was imbruing the minds of the little children with the dye of her own thoughts.
From The Cup of Fury A Novel of Cities and Shipyards by Henry Raleigh
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
