impel

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English impellen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin impellō (“to push against, drive forward, urge on”),^[5][6][7][2] from in- (“in, on, against”), assimilated before p,^[6][3] and pellō (“to push, drive”),^[5][6][4] from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“to thrust, strike, drive”), according to Watkins.^[6][4] The OED also compares obsolete French impeller, of the 16th century.^[5] The same Latin verb gave impulse,^[8][9][10] and it is akin to pulse.^[11][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To push, thrust or drive, of a medicine driving humours or a swelling exerting pressure, and also, of madness, to incite someone: before 1425, in a translation of Chauliac's surgery.^[2][3] The OED's first record is later, in Caxton's Eneydos (1490), with the mental sense.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English Dictionary shows both the physical and the mental sense in the first texts,^[2] and the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford also put "propel" first.^[12][13] The OED's entry, first published in 1899, starts with driving a person to act, in 1490, and reaches the literal "to impart motion to" only in Florio's dictionary of 1611.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it physically, "to drive on towards a point; to urge forward; to press on", with examples from Dryden and Pope: "The surge impell'd me on a craggy coast".^[14] The agent noun impeller is in Boyle's writings in 1685.^[3] A rare use, to force a thing upon someone, dates from 1770.^[5]

Timeline

• before 1425 – to push or drive; to incite.^[2][3]
• 1490 – to drive a person to an action by acting on the mind or feelings, in Caxton.^[5]
• 1611 – to cause to move onward, to propel, in Florio.^[5]
• 1685 – the derivative impeller, in Boyle.^[3]
• 1770 – to force a thing upon someone (rare).^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To drive or urge a person to act, whether by pressure or through the mind or feelings: Curiosity impelled her to open the letter.^[7][15][5]
2. To push or drive forward; to set in motion; to propel: The current impelled the raft downstream.^[7][15][5]

Word family

• unimpelled

Related words

• impellent
• impeller
• impulse
• compel
• expel
• propel
• repel
• dispel
• pulse
• appeal

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster