imbue

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
Give to it any undue decision--imbue it with any very determinate tone--and you deprive it at once of its ethereal, its ideal, its intrinsic and essential character.'

View all »
Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. transitive verb To inspire or influence thoroughly; pervade: work imbued with the revolutionary spirit. See Synonyms at charge.
  2. transitive verb To permeate or saturate.
  3. transitive verb To stain or dye deeply.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (47)

  • When you send an email, you are sending it to people, all of whom will imbue your words with their own, particular contexts. —  UnchartedParent.com
  • Many of those people now refer to themselves as Indians and have sought to imbue the term with a positive value that has frequently been lacking. —  Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en]
  • Unlike imitators of Casablanca who have rendered that film a parody of itself through being so endlessly copied and referenced, Tarantino, like Truffaut, understands that a director should imbue the film with his personality to distinguish it from its references. —  The House Next Door
  • When you imbue the same level of seriousness to every hysterical shriek of perceived outrage, whether it be the poorly thought out "reporting" of bracelet-gate or the utter fairy tale of a birth certificate non-scandal, as you do to legitimate objections on serious issues like policy positions or voting anomalies, your opinions - en totem - are less than credulous and are thusly judged to be altogether unserious. —  Open Book
  • I'm not saying the existence of self-aware baryonic matter within the error bars of a cosmology so vast it's nearly absurd isn't a wonderful improbability replete with an inexhaustible beauty, I just don't understand why you need magic to imbue value to it. —  AMERICAN DIGEST
 

Tags

imbue hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 434 times.

2 people have marked this word as a favorite.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

Used in the same contextWord Family

imbue:   imbued
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English enbuen, imbeuen, from Latin imbuere, to moisten, stain.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Old French imbuer, French imboire, = Spanish Portuguese imbuir = Italian imbuire, from Latin imbuere, inbuere, wet, moisten, soak, from in, in, + -buere, allied to bibere, drink: see bib, imbibe. Cf. imbrue.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/ɪmˈbju/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a year.

Recently looked up

dusty · pervasiveness · albeit · recent · slump

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

eu oi oìa u ou e u oìa · the octopi are dry · Kansas City · spell it rite · put it in your pocket