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English borrowed impresario directly from Italian, whose noun impresa means "undertaking." A close relative is the English word emprise ("an adventurous, daring, or chivalric enterprise"), which, like impresario, traces back to the Latin verb prehendere, meaning "to seize." (That verb is also the source of apprehend, comprehend, and prehensile.) English speakers were impressed enough with impresario to borrow it in the 1700s, at first using it, as the Italians did, especially of opera company managers. It should be noted that, despite their apparent similarities, impress and impresario are not related. Impress is a descendant of the Latin pressare, a form of the verb premere, which means "to press."
Examples of impresario in a Sentence
Gqlshare, Orange County Register, 19 Feb. 2025
Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live follows the comedy impresario from childhood through to modern-day SNL, exposing fascinating behind-the-scenes stories of one of our most famous television institutions.
—Seija Rankin, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Feb. 2025
Longtime soccer impresario Lee Stern is still on the board at 98.
—Jon Greenberg, The Athletic, 25 Feb. 2025
Comedy stars of our age all gathered under the aegis of America’s greatest living impresario, my boss Lorne Michaels.
—Glenn Garner, Deadline, 19 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for impresario
Cite this Entry
“Impresario.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/impresario. Accessed 23 Mar. 2025.
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impresario
noun
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