pressure

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈpreʃ.ə/, US /ˈpreʃ.ɚ/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pressure,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French presseure (“oppression, torture, anguish; press for wine or cheese”), pressure, a learned borrowing, and directly borrowed from Latin pressūra (“action of pressing”),^[4][5] from pressus, the past participle of premere (“to press, hold fast, compress”),^[4][2] from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to strike”).^[4][2] It is related to press.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

“Distress, anguish, suffering”: about 1384, in the Wycliffe Bible,^[5] or 1382.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The literal meaning, the exertion of continuous force by pressing, is from probably before 1425.^[5][4] The physical sense, force per unit of area, as the pressure of the air, is from 1660, in Robert Boyle.^[5][7] “Moral or mental coercing force, influence” is from the 1620s,^[4] the weight of political or economic burdens from 1616,^[7] and “urgency, demands on one's time” from 1812.^[5][4] The verb, “to pressurize”, is from 1886 in American English,^[4] and “to exert pressure on someone” by 1922^[4] or from 1939, in Raymond Chandler.^[5][7] The pressure cooker is from 1915.^[5][4]

Timeline

• 1382 – distress, anguish.^[7]
• before 1425 – the act of pressing.^[5]
• 1620s – moral or mental pressure.^[4]
• 1660 – pressure in physics.^[5]
• 1812 – urgency.^[5]
• 1886 – verb, to pressurize.^[4]
• 1915 – pressure cooker.^[5]
• 1939 – verb, to put pressure on.^[5][7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Continuous physical force applied against a thing.
2. (physics) Force per unit of area: air pressure.
3. Influence or force used to persuade or compel: under pressure from voters.
4. Worry and demands that cause stress: the pressure of work.

Verb

1. To force or urge someone by persuasion or influence.
2. To pressurize.

Word family

• pressureless

Related words

• press
• pressurize
• compress
• depress
• express
• impress
• oppress
• print

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press