Origins
The English word 'press' arrived in the late thirteenth century from Old French 'presser,' which descended from Latin 'pressare,' the frequentative form of 'premere' (to press).βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ Among all the English descendants of 'premere,' 'press' is the most direct β it arrived without any Latin prefix, carrying the unmodified meaning of the root verb: to exert force against something.
The verb's semantic range is enormous. To press clothes (flatten with a heated iron), to press a button (push with the finger), to press grapes (squeeze to extract juice), to press charges (urge forward a legal case), to press someone for an answer (urge insistently), to be hard-pressed (under great pressure) β all descend from the single Latin idea of applying sustained force.
The noun 'press' in the sense of a machine for pressing was established by the fourteenth century. Wine presses and olive presses β screw-driven devices for extracting liquid from fruit β were among the most important machines of medieval Europe. When Johannes Gutenberg developed his printing press around 1440, he adapted the design of these agricultural presses. His machine pressed inked metal type against paper, transferring the impression. The name 'press' for this device was natural: it was, literally, a machine that pressed.
Modern Usage
From 'printing press,' the word 'press' underwent one of the most consequential metonymic shifts in the English language. By the sixteenth century, 'the press' could refer not just to the machine but to everything it produced β printed material in general. By the eighteenth century, 'the press' meant the news media collectively: newspapers, journalists, the entire institution of public information dissemination. 'Freedom of the press,' enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1791), originally meant the freedom to operate a printing press without government censorship. Today it encompasses all journalism, regardless of medium.
The phrase 'press conference' (a meeting where someone makes statements and answers questions from journalists) dates to the early twentieth century. A 'press release' (a written statement distributed to news outlets) is mid-twentieth century. 'Press corps' (the group of journalists covering a particular institution) and 'press secretary' (a spokesperson who deals with journalists) are also twentieth-century formations. In all these compounds, 'press' refers to the news media β a meaning that has traveled from Latin 'premere' through French winemaking, German printing, and Anglo-American journalism.
The adjective 'pressing' (urgent, demanding immediate attention) developed in the sixteenth century. Something pressing presses on you β it exerts force, demanding response. 'Hard-pressed' (in difficulties) and 'pressed for time' (lacking time) use the same metaphor: being squeezed by circumstances.
French Influence
'Press' in the sense of forced military recruitment (as in 'press-gang') has a separate etymology, from the obsolete noun 'prest' (an advance payment that bound a man to service), from Old French 'prester' (to lend). However, the similarity to 'press' from 'premere' caused the two words to merge in popular understanding β being 'pressed' into service combined the idea of forced recruitment with the physical metaphor of being squeezed and compelled.
The word 'press' thus sits at the center of an enormous semantic web. It is the root from which 'compress,' 'depress,' 'express,' 'impress,' 'oppress,' 'repress,' and 'suppress' radiate outward, each with its directional prefix. It is the ancestor of 'pressure,' 'pressing,' and 'print.' It names machines, institutions, urgency, and force. No other four-letter word in English covers so much ground, and all of it traces back to the single Latin act of pushing against something with sustained force.