Adjacent Words

Impress gang definitions

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Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Impress 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.