Language Of Confusion: -Press, Redux, Part II

The rest of the words related to press! Some of them actually have the word in them!
 
Oppress first showed up in the late fourteenth century, and it follows the same pattern as last week. It’s from the Old French oppresser, Medieval Latin oppressare, and classical Latin opprimere, to crush. That’s a mix of the prefix ob-, against, and premere, to press, so oppressing something is pressing against them. But, like, really hard.
 
There’s also suppress, which showed up in the late fourteenth century, but meant to be burdensome, not meaning what we know it as until the early sixteenth century. It’s a mix of the prefix sub-, below or under, while the press is of course from premere, so to suppress is to press from below. Kind of weird etymology there.
 
Finally for -press words, repress showed up in the late fourteenth century, meaning to check a sin or error, or to subdue. It’s from the classical Latin repressus, repressed, from the verb reprimere, to check (as in to hold something in check). The re- means back, so to repress something means to press it back.
 
Now it’s time for the more WTF ones, like print (which is even more appropriate with the other definition of press). Print showed up in the fourteenth century as prente, and it meant a mark made by impression, usually by a stamp or a seal. It’s from the Old French preinte and its verb form preindre, which is from premere and its Proto Indo European origin per-, to strike. And imprint is from the same place, having also shown up in the late fourteenth century with pretty much the same definition as print—the only difference is imprint kept that meaning. The in- prefix means into or on, so it’s to print in.
 
And how about reprimand? You can actually kind of see it related to premere from the spelling, more so than any of the press words. It showed up in the early seventeenth century from the French réprimande, from the classical Latin reprimenda, being repressed, which is also from reprimere.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Dictionary of Medieval Latin

Language of Confusion: -Pressed, part 2

Woo, here we go! Press, part two.

Pressure

Pressure showed up in the late fourteenth century meaning, and I quote, “act or fact of pressing on the mind or heart”—the literal meaning of pressing down on something came later, in the early fifteenth century. Pressure comes from the Old French presseure, which meant both a press for wine or cheeses and also an instrument of torture. You know, fun things. It comes from the Classical Latin pressura, pressing or squeezing.

Espresso

No, I’m not joking. It kind of makes sense, really, as it’s coffee made with steam (ahem) pressure. It’s a recent word, showing up in 1945 from the Italian caffè espresso, which is what they call an espresso. Just plain espresso means expressed in Italian, and it comes from the Latin exprimere, which you might remember from last week as being the origin word for express.

Compress

Compress showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French compresser, put under pressure. That word comes from the classical Latin compressare, press together, the frequentative of comprimere, compress. The word for press is premere in Latin, so I guess they decided to do a letter change for some reason. Anyway, the com- prefix means together, so the word literally means press together, which is exactly what a compress does.

Suppress

Like the others, suppress showed up in the late fourteenth century, where it meant to be burdensome for over a century before switching to the meaning we know it as in the early fifteen hundreds. It comes from the classical Latin (of course) suppressus, shockingly translated as suppress, the past participle of supprimere, which also means suppress. Don’t ask me why. Sometimes I don’t have a good grasp on the intricacies of English. Anyway, that sup- is actually sub-, as in under, so with premere it’s “press under”, which is a pretty good definition of what suppression tries to do.

Oppress

Next we have oppress, which showed up in the mid fourteenth century from the Old French opresser, with the same meaning. It comes from the Medieval Latin oppressare and classical Latin opprimere, force or subdue (and in Late Latin, rape). The ob- means against, and with press…yeah, oppress against pretty much covers it. Press against something to keep it from fighting back.

Repress

Last but not least (or maybe it is, I don’t know), repress. It showed up in the late fourteenth century as to restrain, coming from the classical Latin repressus, stifled, and reprimere, repression. One of the prefix re-’s many meanings is back, so “press back”, like you would some emotion you don’t want bubbling to the surface.

I love it when the words make sense. It gives me a tingly feeling.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Dictionary of Medieval Latin