Etymology

impressive

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Today it means: Making, or tending to make, a positive impression; having power to impress. Full definition →

English impress ← Middle English impressen ← Latin impressus
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*h₁én
  2. Proto-Italic*en
  3. Proto-Italic*en-
  4. Latinin-
  5. Proto-Indo-European*per-?
  6. Proto-Indo-European*pres-
  7. Proto-Italic*pres-
  8. Latinpremō
  9. Latinimprimō
  10. Latinimpressus
  11. Middle Englishimpressen
  12. Englishimpress
  13. English todayimpressive

From impress + -ive.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.