express

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɛk.ˈspɹɛs/ IPA^(key): /ɪkˈspɹɛs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛs

From French exprès, from Latin expressus, past participle of exprimere (see Etymology 2, below).

express (comparative more express, superlative most express)

1. (not comparable) Moving or operating quickly, as a train not making local stops.
2. (comparable) Specific or precise; directly and distinctly stated; not merely implied.

   I gave him express instructions not to begin until I arrived, but he ignored me.

   This book cannot be copied without the express permission of the publisher.

3. Truly depicted; exactly resembling.

   In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance.

   • 1634, John Milton, Homer Sprague, editor, The Mask of Comus, New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co., published 1876, page 253:

     Soon as the potion works, their human countenance, / The express resemblance of the gods, is changed / Into some brutish form, of wolf, or bear, / Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, / All other parts remaining as they were […]

4. (retail) Providing a more limited but presumably faster service than a full or complete dealer of the same kind or type.

   The Pizza Hut inside Target isn't a full one: it's a Pizza Hut Express.

   Some Wal-Mart stores will include a McDonald's Express.

   The mall's selection of cell phone carriers includes a full AT&T store and a T-Mobile express.

• explicit
• (of a train): fast, crack

• implied

express (plural expresses)

1. A mode of transportation, often a train, that travels quickly or directly.

   I took the express into town.

   • 1931, Francis Beeding, “1/1”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps‎:

     The train was moving less fast through the summer night. The swift express had changed into something almost a parliamentary, had stopped three times since Norwich, and now, at long last, was approaching Banton.

2. A service that allows mail or money to be sent rapidly from one destination to another.
3. An express rifle.
   • (Can we date this quote?) H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines

     "Give me my express," I said, laying down the Winchester, and he handed it to me cocked.

4. (obsolete) A clear image or representation; an expression; a plain declaration.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Jeremy Taylor

     the only remanent express of Christ's sacrifice on earth

5. A messenger sent on a special errand; a courier.
6. An express office.
   • (Can we date this quote?) E. E. Hale

     She charged him […] to ask at the express if anything came up from town.

7. That which is sent by an express messenger or message.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Eikon Basilike to this entry?)

• (of a train): fast train

• (of a train): local, stopper

From Old French espresser, expresser, from frequentative form of Latin exprimere.

express (third-person singular simple present expresses, present participle expressing, simple past and past participle expressed)

1. (transitive) To convey or communicate; to make known or explicit.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 5, in The Celebrity:

     We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine. We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith. As we reached the lodge we heard the whistle, and we backed up against one side of the platform as the train pulled up at the other.

   Words cannot express the love I feel for him.

2. (transitive) To press, squeeze out (especially said of milk).
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, chapter 13

     The people of his island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl [...].

   • 2018, Kelsey Munroe, The Guardian, 15 March:

     They don’t have teats, so the mothers express their milk onto their bellies for their young to feed.

3. (biochemistry) To translate messenger RNA into protein.
4. (biochemistry) To transcribe deoxyribonucleic acid into messenger RNA.
   • 2015, Ferris Jabr, How Humans Ended Up With Freakishly Huge Brains, Wired:

     When a cell “expresses” a gene, it translates the DNA first into a signature messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence and subsequently into a chain of amino acids that forms a protein.

• outspeak, utter

• express oneself

• expressible
• expressibly
• expression
• expressive
• expressively
• expressly

express (plural expresses)

1. (obsolete) The action of conveying some idea using words or actions; communication, expression.
   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, V.20:

     Whereby they discoursed in silence, and were intuitively understood from the theory of their expresses.

2. (obsolete) A specific statement or instruction.
   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, II.5:

     This Gentleman [...] caused a man to go down no less than a hundred fathom, with express to take notice whether it were hard or soft in the place where it groweth.