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 or stain 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

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

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin imbuō ("wet, moisten").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Cf. instill

    September 26, 2010