Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To inspire or influence thoroughly; pervade.
- transitive verb To saturate, impregnate, or dye.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To impregnate by steeping or soaking: used especially with reference to dyes.
- To tincture deeply; cause to become impregnated or penetrated: as, to
imbue the minds of youth with good principles.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To tinge deeply; to dye; to cause to absorb.
- transitive verb To tincture deply; to cause to become impressed or penetrated.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive : To
wet orstain an object completely with some physical quality. - verb In general, to act in a way which results in an object becoming completely permeated or impregnated by some quality.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb suffuse with color
- verb spread or diffuse through
- verb fill, soak, or imbue totally
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The animal terms imbue the loved one with the characteristics humans ascribe to each animal.
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Since when do mysterious rifts "imbue" magical abilities?
HH Com 256 (253) Miss Snark 2006
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Sitting on the pitch and abandoning your teammates is not the action of a winner, that's not how you 'imbue' a winning culture.
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Sitting on the pitch and abandoning your teammates is not the action of a winner, that's not how you 'imbue' a winning culture.
planet.journals.ie 2008
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Sitting on the pitch and abandoning your teammates is not the action of a winner, that's not how you 'imbue' a winning culture.
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"People had become terribly troubled," he said, trying hard to imbue the word "troubled" with sympathy.
Rewind radio: The Brown Years; Desert Island Discs; Craig Brown's Lost Diaries Rachel Cooke 2010
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Like the great universities, Oaksterdam seeks to imbue its students with a vision of the world and the zeal to go forth and change it.
Cannabusiness 2009
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Smith describes Mapplethorpe's art thus: "Robert took areas of dark human consent and made them into art... sought to elevate aspects of male experience, to imbue homosexuality with mysticism."
Holly Cara Price: Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe: Brainiac Amours in Just Kids Holly Cara Price 2011
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Her tone is more silver than gold, but she knows how to subtly imbue a phrase with feeling, when to color the violin sound to reflect changes in the character of a piece, and when to simply let the music speak for itself.
Busy Violinist Seeks Balance Barbara Jepson 2011
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But if Montgomerie can imbue his 12 players with the focused serenity that settled over him whenever he pulled out a club on Europe's behalf, Celtic Manor could become the scene of the triumph that seals his legend.
Cometh the Ryder Cup moment, cometh captain Colin Montgomerie Richard Williams 2010
oroboros commented on the word imbue
Cf. instill
September 26, 2010