Im″press (?), n.; pl.Impresses (�). 1. The act of impressing or making.
2. A mark made by pressure; an indentation; imprint; the image or figure of anything, formed by pressure or as if by pressure; result produced by pressure or influence.
The impresses of the insides of these shells. Woodward.
This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice. Shak.
3. Characteristic; mark of distinction; stamp. South.
4. A device. See Impresa. Cussans.
To describe... emblazoned shields,
Impresses quaint. Milton.
5. [See Imprest, Press to force into service.] The act of impressing, or taking by force for the public service; compulsion to serve; also, that which is impressed.
Why such impress of shipwrights? Shak.
Impress gang, a party of men, with an officer, employed to impress seamen for ships of war; a press gang. — Impress money, a sum of money paid, immediately upon their entering service, to men who have been impressed.