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”; see im- 1, pre-; see origin at 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 order to foresee disasters it is necessary that the perception—visual or auditory—of said disasters should already have imprest us.
From Common Sense, How to Exercise It by Yoritomo-Tashi, Mme. Blanchard
This is that Henry IV., whose scene at Canossa with the Pope—Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire waiting three days in the snow to kiss the foot of excommunicative Gregory—has imprest itself on all memories.
From Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5 Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1 by Halsey, Francis W. (Francis Whiting)
I know of no other use of the word "imprest" as a substantive; and though we see "debenture" often enough in railway reports, I cannot perceive the analogy between its meanings in the two cases.
From Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 by Various
Preeminent above all other suggestions, I am imprest with his vivid sense of the reality of the redemptive work of Christ.
From The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 Drummond to Jowett, and General Index by Kleiser, Grenville
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.
