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''press'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260723122144-00-⌔
press - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

press (countable and uncountable, plural presses)

An instance of applying pressure; an instance of pressing.

✤ Connecting to the service is almost idiot proof and takes just a few button presses.¹

✤ a slaloming winger putting lumpen defenders on their backsides, or even a sneaky centre-forward, using his boundless energy to lead the press and force mistakes.²

(countable) A device used to apply pressure to an item.

✤ *a flower press *

✤ *a cheese press *

(uncountable) A crowd.

✤ And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature.³

✤ The press in the square grew. Something would happen now.⁴

✤ Imagine the press of humanity in a crowded Parisian brasserie, circa the era when Lagerfeld would have been patronizing such joints.⁵

(countable) A printing machine.

✤ Synonym: printing press

✤ Stop the presses!

✤ That books are pouring off the world’s presses at unprecedented rates is a fact often alluded to as a flood that is inundating libraries and the book trades.⁶

(uncountable, collective) The print -based media (both the people and the newspapers).

✤ *according to a member of the press *

✤ This article appeared in the press.

✤ From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.⁷

✤ British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.⁸

(countable) A publisher.

(countable, especially in Ireland and Scotland) An enclosed storage space (e.g. closet, cupboard).

✤ Put the cups in the press.

✤ Put the ironing in the linen press.

✤ But then I had the[massive] flintlock by me for protection. […] The linen- press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window at the old mare feeding in the meadow below by the brook, and a ‘bead’ could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge, […].⁹

(countable, weightlifting) An exercise in which weight is forced away from the body by extension of the arms or legs.

✤ This is the fourth set of benchpresses. There will be five more; then there will be five sets of presses on an inclined bench […].¹⁰

(countable, golf, gambling) An additional bet in a golf match that duplicates an existing (usually losing) wager in value, but begins even at the time of the bet.

✤ He can even the match with a press.

✤ The way a press works is, say you’re two down after six holes; you can then start another bet (in effect another match) from the seventh hole, for the same amount, starting all square on the seventh tee.¹¹

✤ When a side is two or more points down in the match, they may request a press.¹²

(countable) Pure, unfermented grape juice.

✤ I would like some Concord press with my meal tonight.

A commission to force men into public service, particularly into the navy.

✤ Synonym: press-gang

✤ I have misused the king’s press.¹³

(psychology) In personology, any environmental factor that arouses a need in the individual.

✤ The environmental comfort category is illustrative of cases in which there are low environmental presses matched against a number of personal competences.¹⁴

Verb

press (third-person singular simple present presses, present participle pressing, simple past and past participlepressed or prest)

(ambitransitive) To exert weight or force against, to act upon with force or weight; to exert pressure upon.

(transitive, mechanics, electronics) To activate a button or key by exerting a downward or forward force on it, and then releasing it.

✤ Synonyms: strike, hit, depress

(transitive) To compress, squeeze.

✤ Synonyms: thring, thrutch; see also Thesaurus: compress

✤ to press fruit for the purpose of extracting the juice

(transitive) To clasp, hold in an embrace.

✤ Synonym: hug

✤ With tears and ſmiles ſhe took her ſon, and preſs’d/Th’ illuſtrious infant to her fragrant breaſt.¹⁵

(transitive) To reduce to a particular shape or form by pressure, especially flatten or smooth.

✤ to press cloth with a clothes-iron

✤ to press a hat

(transitive, sewing) To flatten a selected area of fabric using an iron with an up-and-down, not sliding, motion, so as to avoid disturbing adjacent areas.

(transitive) To drive or thrust by pressure, to force in a certain direction.

✤ Synonyms: thring, thrutch

✤ to press a crowd back

(transitive, weightlifting) To force weight away from the body by extending the arms or legs.

✤ Start with two weights on the floor. Grab one with your right hand, then curl or clean it to your shoulder, then press it overhead.¹⁶

(transitive, obsolete) To weigh upon, oppress, trouble.

✤ He turns from us;/Alas, he weeps too! Something presses him/He would reveal, but dare not. Sir, be comforted.¹⁷

(transitive) To force to a certain end or result; to urge strongly.

✤ Synonym: impel

✤ The two gentlemen who conducted me to the island were pressed by their private affairs to return in three days.¹⁸

To try to force (something upon someone).

✤ Synonyms: urge, inculcate

✤ to press the Bible on an audience

✤ He press’d a letter upon me within this hour.¹⁹

✤ Be sure to press upon him every motive.²⁰

(transitive) To hasten, urge onward.

✤ to press a horse in a race

(transitive) To urge, beseech, entreat.

✤ God heard their prayers, wherein they earnestly pressed him for the honor of his great name.²¹

(transitive) To lay stress upon.

✤ Synonym: emphasize

✤ If we read but a very little, we naturally want to press it all; if we read a great deal, we are willing not to press the whole of what we read, and we learn what ought to be pressed and what not.²²

(ambitransitive) To throng, crowd.

✤ Synonyms: thring, thrutch; see also Thesaurus: assemble

(transitive, obsolete) To print.

To force into service, particularly into naval service.

✤ Synonym: press-gang

✤ The peaceful peasant to the wars is press’d.²³

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation, US) IPA: /pɹɛs/

Audio (London): 🔊

Audio (US): 🔊

(Australian, New Zealand) IPA: /pɹes/

(Scotland, Wales) IPA: /pɾɛs/

(Northern Ireland) IPA: /pɻɛs/

Rhymes: -ɛs

Etymology 1

From Middle English presse (“throng, crowd, clothespress”), partially from Old English press (“clothespress”) (from Medieval Latin pressa) and from Old French presse (Modern French presse) from Old French presser (“to press”), from Latin pressāre, from pressus, past participle of premere (“to press”). Chiefly displaced native Middle English thring (“press, crowd, throng”) (from Old English þring (“a press, crowd, anything that presses or confines”)). see English thring

Etymology 2

From Middle English pressen (“to crowd, thring, press”), from Old French presser (“to press”) (Modern French presser) from Latin pressāre, from pressus, past participle of premere “to press”. Displaced native Middle English thringen (“to press, crowd, throng”) (from Old English þringan (“to press, crowd”)), Middle English thrasten (“to press, force, urge”) (from Old English þrǣstan (“to press, force”)), Old English þryscan (“to press”), Old English þȳwan (“to press, impress”).

Printed 2026-07-23.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

2004 10, “Maximum PC”, in, page 25: ↩

2020 August 7, Jonathan Liew, “Phil Foden stars to offer Manchester City glimpse of multiple futures”, in The Guardian ‎ $^{[1]}$ : ↩

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 19:3: ↩

1962, Olivia Manning, The Spoilt City; republished as The Balkan Trilogy, 1990, →ISBN, page 327: ↩

2015 March 10, Tim Banks, “Chanel Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear Collection”, in Vogue: ↩

1972, Carol A. Nemeyer, Scholarly Reprint Publishing in the United States, New York, N.Y.: R. R. Bowker Co., →ISBN, page 8: ↩

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC: ↩

2013 August 10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848: ↩

1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC: ↩

1974, Charles Gaines, George Butler, Pumping Iron: The Art and Sport of Bodybuilding, page 22: ↩

2012, Gary McCord, Golf For Dummies: ↩

2014, Nicolae Sfetcu, Sports Betting, page 181: ↩

c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]: ↩

2009, Allison E. Smith, Ageing in Urban Neighbourhoods, page 88: ↩

a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “The Last Parting of Hector and Andromache. From the Sixth Book of the Iliad.”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume IV, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760, →OCLC, page 456: ↩

2026, Greg Presto, “Timeless Gains”, in Men’s Health, volume 41, number 2, page 14: ↩

c. 1621, John Fletcher, The Pilgrim, act I, scene ii: ↩

1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan): ↩

1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act II, page 27: ↩

1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene iii, page 7: ↩

1825, John Winthrop, The History of New England, volume II, page 29: ↩

1873, Matthew Arnold, “preface”, in Literature and Dogma: ↩

1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC: ↩

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☼ Concept Map

''press'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

Primary

''press'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260723122144-00-⌔

English

Noun

Verb

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Etymology 2

Secondary