Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PRES'I-DENT, n. [Fr. from L. præsidens.]

1. An officer elected or appointed to preside over a corporation, company or assembly of men, to keep order, manage their concerns or govern their proceedings; as, the president of a banking company; the president of a senate, &c.
2. An officer appointed or elected to govern a province or territory, or to administer the government of a nation. The president of the United States to the chief executive magistrate.
3. The chief officer of a college or university. – United States.
4. A tutelar power. Just Apollo, president of verse. – Waller. Vice-president, one who is second in authority to the president. The vice-president of the United States is president of the senate ex officio, and performs the duties of president is when the latter is removed or disabled.

PRES-I-DEN'TIAL, a.

1. Pertaining to a president; as, the presidential chair. – Walsh.
2. Presiding over. – Glanville.

PRES'I-DENT-SHIP, a.

1. The office and place of president. – Hooker.
2. The term for which a president holds his office.

PRE-SID'I-AL, or PRE-SID'I-A-RY, a. [L. præsidium, a garrison; præ and sedeo.]

Pertaining to a garrison; having a garrison. – Howell.

PRE-SID-ING, ppr.

Directing; controlling; exercising superintendence.

PRE-SIG-NIF-I-CA'TION, n. [from presignify.]

The act of signifying or showing beforehand. – Barrow.

PRE-SIG'NI-FI-ED, pp.

Signified beforehand.

PRE-SIG'NI-FY, v.t. [pre and signify.]

To intimate or signify beforehand; to show previously. – Pearson.

PRE-SIG'NI-FY-ING, ppr.

Intimating beforehand.

PRESS, n. [It. pressa, haste, hurry, a crowd; Sp. sprensa; Fr. presse, pressoir; Sw. präss; Dan. and G. presse.]

1. An instrument or machine by which any body is squeezed, crushed or forced into more compact form; as, a winepress, ciderpress, or cheese-press.
2. A machine for printing; a printing-press. Great improvements have been lately made in the construction of presses.
3. The art or business of printing and publishing. A free press is a great blessing to a free people; a licentious press is a curse to society.
4. A crowd; a throng; a multitude of individuals crowded together. And when they could not come nigh to him for the press. – Mark ii.
5. The act of urging or pushing forward. Which in their throng and press to the last hold, / Confound themselves. – Shak.
6. A wine-vat or cistern. – Hag. ii.
7. A case or closet for the safe keeping of garments. – Shak.
8. Urgency; urgent demands of affairs; as, a press of business.
9. A commission to force men into public service, particularly into the navy; for impress. – Ralegh. Press of sail, in navigation, is as much sail as the state of the wind will permit. – Mar. Dict. Liberty of the press, in civil policy, is the free right of publishing books, pamphlets or papers without previous restraint; or the unrestrained right which every citizen enjoys of publishing his thoughts and opinions, subject only to punishment for publishing what is pernicious to morals or to the peace of the state.

PRESS, v.i.

1. To urge or strain in motion; to urge forward with force. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. – Phil. iii. The insulting victor presses on the more. – Dryden.
2. To bear on with force; to encroach. On superior powers / Were we to press, inferior might on ours. – Pope.
3. To bear on with force; to crowd; to throng. Thronging crowds press on you as you pass. – Dryden.
4. To approach unseasonably or importunately. Nor press too near the throne. – Dryden.
5. To urge with vehemence and importunity. He pressed upon them greatly, and they turned into him. – Gen. xix.
6. To urge by influence or moral force. When arguments press equally in matters indifferent, the safest method is to give up ourselves to neither. – Addison.
7. To push with force; at, to press against the door.

PRESS, v.t. [Fr. presser; It. pressare; to press, crowd, urge, hurry; D. and G. pressen; Sw. prassa; Dan. presser; W. brysiaw, to hurry, formed from rhys, extreme ardency, a rushing. Here we have proof that press is formed from the root of rush, with a prefix. The Spanish has apretar, prenser and aprensar. The L. pressus is from the same root.]

1. To urge with force or weight; a word of extensive use, denoting the application of any power, physical or moral, to something that is to be moved or affected. We press the ground with the feet when we walk; we press the couch on which we repose; we press substances with the hands, fingers or arms; the smith presses iron with his vise; we are pressed with the weight of arguments or of cares, troubles and business.
2. To squeeze; to crush; as, to press grapes. – Gen. xi.
3. To drive with violence; to hurry; as, to press a horse in motion, or in a race.
4. To urge; to enforce; to inculcate with earnestness; as, to press divine truth on an audience.
5. To embrace closely; to hug. Leucothoe shook / And press'd Palemon closer in her arms. – Pope.
6. To force into service, particularly into naval service; to impress. – Clarendon. Dryden.
7. To straiten; to distress; as, to be pressed with want or with difficulties.
8. To constrain; to compel; to urge by authority or necessity. The posts that rode on mules and camels went out, being hastened and pressed on by the king's commandment. – Esth. viii.
9. To urge; to impose by importunity. He pressed a letter upon me, within this hour, to deliver to you. – Dryden.
10. To urge or solicit with earnestness or importunity. He pressed me to accept of his offer.
11. To urge; to constrain. Paul was pressed in spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. – Acts xviii. Wickedness pressed with conscience, forecasteth grievous things. – Wisdom.
12. To squeeze for making smooth; as cloth or paper. Press differs from drive and strike, in usually denoting a slow or continued application of force; whereas, drive and strike denote a sudden impulse of force.

PRESS'-BED, n.

A bed that may be raised and inclosed in a case.

PRESS'ED, pp.

Urged by force or weight; constrained; distressed; crowded; embraced; made smooth and glossy by pressure, as cloth.

PRESS'ER, n.

One that presses.

PRESS'-GANG, n. [press and gang.]

A detachment of seamen under the command of an officer, empowered to impress men into the naval service. [See Impress-gang.]

PRESS'ING, n.

The act or operation of applying force to bodies. The pressing of cloth is performed by means of the screw, or by a calendar.

PRESS'ING, ppr.

1. Urging with force or weight; squeezing; constraining; crowding; embracing; distressing; forcing into service; rolling in a press.
2. adj. Urgent; distressing.

PRESS'ING-LY, adv.

With force or urgency; closely. – Howell.

PRES'SION, n. [It. pressione.]

1. The act of pressing. But Pressure is more generally used. – Newton.
2. In the Cartesian philosophy, an endeavor to move.

PRESS'I-TANT, a.

Gravitating; heavy. [Not in use.] – More.

PRESS'MAN, n.

1. In printing, the man who manages the press and impresses the sheets.
2. One of a press-gang, who aids in forcing men into the naval service. – Chapman.

PRESS'-MON-EY, n.

Money paid to a man impressed into public service. [See Prest-money.] – Gay.

PRESS'URE, n. [It. and L. pressura.]

1. The act of pressing or urging with force.
2. The act of squeezing or crushing. Wine is obtained by the pressure of grapes.
3. The state of being squeezed or crushed.
4. The force of one body acting on another by weight or the continued application of power. Pressure is occasioned by weight or gravity, by the motion of bodies, by the expansion of fluids, by elasticity, &c. Mutual pressure may be caused by the meeting of moving bodies, or by the motion of one body against another at rest, and the resistance or elastic force of the latter. The degree of pressure is in proportion to the weight of the pressing body, or to the power applied, or to the elastic force of resisting bodies. The screw is a most powerful instrument of pressure. The pressure of wind on the sails of a ship is in proportion to its velocity.
5. A constraining force or impulse; that which urges or compels the intellectual or moral faculties; as, the pressure; of motives on the mind, or of fear on the conscience.
6. That which afflicts the body or depresses the spirits; any severe affliction, distress, calamity or grievance; straits, difficulties, embarrassments; or the distress they occasion. We speak of the pressure of poverty or want, the pressure of debts, the pressure of taxes, the pressure of afflictions or sorrow. My own and my people's pressures are grievous. – K. Charles. To this consideration he retreats with comfort in all his pressures. – Atterbury. We observe that pressure is used both for trouble or calamity, and for the distress it produces.
7. Urgency; as, the pressure of business.
8. Impression; stamp; character impressed. All laws of books, all forms, all pressures past. – Shak.

PRESS'-WORK, n.

That part of printing which consists in impressing the sheets upon the type.