- press
- \ \ English has two words press. The commoner, and older, ‘exert force, push’ [14], comes via Old French presser from Latin pressāre, a verb derived from the past participle of premere ‘press’ (source of English print). The corresponding noun press (which actually arrived in English a century earlier in the now archaic sense ‘crowd’) originated as a derivative of the Old French verb. Derived verbs in English include compress [14], depress [14], express, impress [14], oppress [14], repress [14], and suppress [14].\ \ The other press, ‘force’ [16], is now found virtually only in the expression ‘press into service’ and in the compound press-gang [17]. It originally denoted ‘compel to join the navy, army, etc’, and was an alteration, under the influence of press ‘exert force’, of prest ‘pay recruits’. This was a verbal use of Middle English prest ‘money given to recruits’, which was borrowed from Old French prest ‘loan’.\ \ This in turn was a derivative of the verb prester ‘lend’, which went back to Latin praestāre ‘provide’, a compound formed from the prefix prae- ‘before’ and stāre ‘stand’. Related to praestāre was Latin praestō ‘at hand’, from which have evolved French prêt ‘ready’ and Italian and Spanish presto ‘quick’ (English borrowed the Italian version as presto [16]).\ \ Cf.⇒ COMPRESS, DEPRESS, EXPRESS, IMPRESS, OPPRESS, PRINT, REPRESS, SUPPRESS; PRESTO, STATION
Word origins - 2ed. J. Ayto. 2005.
