Literary notes about impressed (AI summary)
Writers employ the word "impressed" with remarkable versatility, using it to express both literal and figurative phenomena. In some passages it portrays the act of indelibly etching words or images in one’s mind—as when a phrase seems to embed itself permanently in memory [1] or when a significant idea is imposed forcefully upon a thinker’s brain [2]. In other passages the term assumes a physical dimension, evoking images of inscriptions carved by an external force or mark left visibly on surfaces [3], [4]. Moreover, authors extend its use to capture emotional encounters; characters are sometimes described as being deeply moved or marked by a person’s character or actions, as in moments of unexpected honesty or overwhelming passion [5], [6]. This multi-layered usage—ranging from an act of sensory imprinting to a forceful, almost tangible influence—underscores the breadth with which "impressed" enriches narrative expression [7], [8], [9].
- Clerval spoke thus as we hurried through the streets; the words impressed themselves on my mind, and I remembered them afterwards in solitude.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - One idea was all the time impressed upon my brain.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne - For many centuries it retained the same character which was impressed upon it by the hand of the legislator.
— from Laws by Plato - On such an occasion three or four lines are impressed close to one another with the nails.
— from The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana by Vatsyayana - Sincerely as I loathed the man, the prodigious strength of his character, even in its most trivial aspects, impressed me in spite of myself.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - But its color was what had impressed me most.
— from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - On this only-begotten Son, the Almighty Father had transfused his ample spirit, and impressed the effulgence of his glory.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - “He impressed me as being a perfectly honest man.”
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - A curious peculiarity of our memory is that things are impressed better by active than by passive repetition.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James
