To impress or stamp a mark onto something, often used in printing or engraving.
From Middle French empreinte, derived from Old French empreindre (to impress), combining em- (in) + preindre (to press), from Latin premere (to press). The meaning evolved from physically pressing something into a surface to the abstract concept of leaving an impression.
This word is the ancestor of our modern word 'imprint,' but emprint is almost entirely forgotten—a ghost word that linguists find in old texts. It shows how prefixes like em- and im- were interchangeable in Middle English, creating parallel words that competed until one won out.
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