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say it: im-PRESH-uhn
impression is a noun meaning "a vague idea in which some confidence is placed". It carries 9 recorded senses.
an outward appearance
“he made a good impression”
“I wanted to create an impression of success”
“she retained that bold effect in her reproductions of the original painting”
a clear and telling mental image
“he described his mental picture of his assailant”
“he had no clear picture of himself or his world”
“the events left a permanent impression in his mind”
a concavity in a surface produced by pressing
“he left the impression of his fingers in the soft mud”
all the copies of a work printed at one time
“they ran off an initial printing of 2000 copies”
printing
(dentistry) an imprint of the teeth and gums in wax or plaster
“the dentist took an impression for use in preparing an inlay”
dentistry
the act of pressing one thing on or into the surface of another
“he watched the impression of the seal on the hot wax”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for impression come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.