Pressing (pronounced pres-ing)
(1) Urgent; demanding immediate attention; Insistent,
earnest, or persistent.
(2) Any phonograph record produced in a record-molding press
from a master.
(3) To act upon with steadily applied weight or force; to
move by weight or force in a certain direction or into a certain position; to
weigh heavily upon.
(4) To compress or squeeze, as to alter in shape or size.
(5) To flatten or make smooth, especially by ironing.
(6) To extract juice, sugar, oil etc by applying pressure.
(7) To produce shapes from materials by applying pressure in
a mold; a component formed in a press.
(8) To bear heavily, as upon the mind.
(9) A ancient form of torture and execution.
(10) The process of improving the appearance of clothing by
improving creases and removing wrinkles with a press or an iron.
(11) A memento preserved by pressing, folding, or drying
between the leaves of a flat container, book or folio (usually with a flower,
ribbon, letter, or other soft, small keepsake).
1300-1350: From the Middle English presing, from the Classical Latin pressāre, (frequentative of premere (past participle pressus)). In Medieval Latin pressa was the noun use of feminine pressus, similar to Old French presser (from Late Latin pressāre). In English, the meaning “exerting pressure" dates from the mid-fourteenth century and sense of "urgent, compelling, forceful" is from 1705. In the sense of a machine for printing, this spread from the machine itself (1530s) to publishing houses by the 1570s and to publishing generally by 1680. In French, pressing is a pseudo-Anglicism.
The construct was press + ing. Press dates from the late twelfth century and was from the Middle English press & presse (throng, trouble, machine for pressing) from the Old French, from presser (to press) from the Latin pressāre, frequentative of premere (past participle pressus) and in Medieval Latin it became pressa (noun use of the feminine of pressus). The noun press (a crowd, throng, company; crowding and jostling of a throng; a massing together) emerged in the late twelfth century and was from the eleventh century Old French presse (a throng, a crush, a crowd; wine or cheese press), from the Latin pressare. Although in the Late Old English press existed in the sense of "clothes press", etymologists believe the Middle English word is probably from French. The general sense of an "instrument or machine by which anything is subjected to pressure" dates from the late fourteenth century and was first used to describe a "device for pressing cloth" before being extended to "devices which squeeze juice from grapes, oil from olives, cider from apples etc". The sense of "urgency, urgent demands of affairs" emerged in the 1640s. It subsequently proved adaptable as a technical term in sports, adopted by weightlifting in 1908 while the so-called (full-court press) defense in basketball was first recorded in 1959. The suffix –ing was from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing). Pressing is a noun & verb, pressingness is a noun and pressingly is an adverb; the noun plural is pressings.
In Roman mythology it was said that while Rome was besieged by the Sabine king Titus Tatius, the commander of the Sabine army was approached by Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, commander of the Roman citadel. Tarpeia offered the attacking forces a path of entry to the city in exchange for "what they bore on their left arms." Although it was sometimes spun that she actually meant they should cast of their shields and enter in peace, the conventional tale is she wanted their gold bracelets. The Sabines (sort of) complied, throwing their shields (which they carried upon their left arms) upon her, pressing her until she died. Her body was then cast from (although some accounts say buried beneath) a steep cliff of the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill which has since been known as the Rupes Tarpeia or Saxum Tarpeium (Tarpeian Rock (Rupe Tarpea in Italian)).
The Sabines were however unable to conquer the Rome, its gates miraculously protected by boiling jets of water created by Janus, the legend depicted in 89 BC by the poet Sabinus following the Civil Wars as well as on a silver denarius of the Emperor Augustus circa 20 BC. Tarpeia would later become a symbol of betrayal and greed in Rome and the cliff from which she was thrown was, during the Roman Republic, the place of execution or the worst criminals: murderers, traitors, perjurors and troublesome slaves, all, upon conviction by the quaestores parricidii (a kind of inquisitorial magistrate) flung to their deaths. The Rupes Tarpeia stands about 25 m (80 feet) high and was used for executions until the first century AD.
Pressing by elephant.
Under a wide variety of names, pressing was a popular method of torture or execution for over four-thousand years; mostly using rocks and stones but elephants tended to be preferred in south and south-east Asia. The elephant had great appeal because, large and expensive to run, they could be maintained as a symbol of power and authority and there were few better expressions of a ruler’s authority that the killing of opponents, trouble-makers or the merely tiresome. Properly handled, an elephant could be trained to torture or kill although, being beasts from the wild, things could go wrong and almost certainly some unfortunate souls ear-marked for nothing but the brief torture of a pressing under the elephant’s foot (for technical reasons, they don’t have hooves) ended up being crushed to death. Even that presumably added to the intimidation and in some places in India, this means of dispatch was said to be known as Gajamoksha (based on the Gajendra Moksha (The Liberation of Gajendra (the elephant)), an ancient Hindu text in which elephants were prominent) although these stories are now thought to have been a creation of the imaginations of British writers who, in the years before, found a ready audience for fantastical tales from the Orient. As told, a Gajamoksha seems to have been more a trampling than a pressing and the political significance of the business was it was done in public; the manufacturing of entertainment and spectacle apparently common to just about every regime in human history. That there were public displays of torture and execution using elephants is part of the historical record but the surviving depictions seem to suggest pressing rather than trampling was the preferred method. A trampling elephant does sound like something which may have had unintended consequences.
As
a asset in the inventory, elephants were versatile and in addition to helping
to pull or carry heavy loads to battlefields, they could be also a potent
assault weapon and, sometimes outfitted with armor (historically of thick
leather), were used in a manner remarkably close in concept to the original
deployment of tanks by the British Army in 1916, charging the line, breaking up
fortifications and troop formations, allowing the infantry to advance through
the gaps. While opponents being trampled
underfoot by a charging elephant may not have been the prime military
directive, it was a useful adjunct. For those
who survived, it may only have been a stay of execution and while there’s
little to suggest elephants were widely used in the bloodbaths which sometimes
followed battlefield defeat, there are records of them ritualistically pressing
to death a vanquished foe.
Not all Kings of England have been
trend-setters but Henry VIII’s style choices exerted an influence not only on
his court and high society but also elsewhere in Europe. What came to be known as the “Tudor style”
was really defined by him and the markers are elaborate embellishments, rich
fabrics (velvet, silk, and brocade much favoured), intricate embroidery and many
decorative details. The Tudor style also
took existing motifs such as the codpiece (the pouch or flap covering the front
opening of men's trousers or hose) and in the early sixteenth century these
became larger and more exaggerated, the function in formal wear more decorative
than practical. He also made popular
(again) the padded shoulders and sleeves which had been seen for centuries but
Henry’s innovation was deliberately to reference the lines used on suits of
armor, something which added to what in later years was his broad &
imposing figure and modern critics have noted this was something which would visually
have re-balanced his increasingly portly figure. London wasn’t than the centre of fashion it
later became and some historians have noted the distinctly French influence which
entered the court after the arrival of Henry’s first wife, the Spanish-born Catherine
of Aragon (1485–1536; Queen of England 1509-1533) and at least some of what was
imported with the unfortunate bride became part of the Tudor style.
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