imprest
1 Americannoun
verb
verb
noun
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a fund of cash from which a department or other unit pays incidental expenses, topped up periodically from central funds
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an advance from government funds for the performance of some public business or service
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(formerly) an advance payment of wages to a sailor or soldier
Etymology
Origin of imprest
First recorded in 1560–70; probably noun use of obsolete verb imprest “to advance money to,” from Italian imprestare, from Medieval Latin imprestāre “to lend,” from Latin im- prefix + praestāre “to tender, offer, present”; influenced in sense by praes, stem praed- “guarantor, one acting as surety”; im- 1, pre-; stand
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.
Since sonnets thus in bundles are imprest, And every drudge doth dull our satiate ear, Think'st thou my love shall in those rags be drest That every dowdy, every trull doth wear?
From Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles: Idea, Fidesa and Chloris by Crow, Martha Foote
In the contemplation of mind, from the highest order to the lowest rank,—from man, to the maggot that consumes him; we are imprest with the evidence of appropriate contrivance and infinite wisdom.
From Sound Mind or, Contributions to the natural history and physiology of the human intellect by Haslam, John
Remember only, that upon him, whose appearance thou shalt assume, thine shall be imprest, till thou restorest his own.
From Almoran and Hamet by Hawkesworth, John
If I had been going into a real engagement I could not have been more deeply imprest by the importance of the occasion.
From The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index by Lodge, Henry Cabot
But here at any rate we can see the house in which he toiled—no genius ever took more pains—and the surroundings which imprest his mind and influenced his inspiration.
From Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5 Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1 by Halsey, Francis W. (Francis Whiting)
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.
