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It turns out that I use this word far more often than I thought. When you think about it though it's not exactly clear what 'impressed' means in English. If you're impressed by a work of art does it follow that that work of art makes you happy? Not necessarily. I suppose 'impressed' is a less intense form of 'amazed'. Well, the Romans had the word 'mirum' but out of three books of synonyms that I have, Ramshorn (1860), Doderlein and Horae Latinae, none of them have a list of synonyms for 'mirum'

#####UPDATE

I just tried 'admirari' and Ramshorn does analyze the difference between 'mirari', 'admirari', 'suspicere', 'demirari' and 'stupere'. All of them to me seem to be more intense than 'impressed' but 'suspicere' seems like it might work, so I'm going to go with the participle of 'suspicere' which is 'suspicatus'. Also at https://latinitium.com/latin-dictionaries/?t=do534 they analyze the difference between:

vereri; revereri; venerari; colere; observare; adorare; admirari; suspicere; verecundia; reverentia; veneratio; cultus; precatio

Also, I looked up all the words related to 'premo' and it appears that the Romans did not adopt the verb 'press' to figuratively mean 'impressed'.

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    Suspicatus is not the participle of suspicere. It's the participle of suspicari (to form an idea, to suspect, to believe guilty of an offense). The participle of suspicere is suspectus; it's passive and would therefore mean 'looked up to' – that is, it's more like 'impressive' than 'impressed.'
    – cnread
    Sep 13, 2021 at 16:22
  • thanks .........
    – bobsmith76
    Sep 13, 2021 at 16:43

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The normal word is moveo. For example:

Cicero, Academica, II.64

Me, Catule, oratio Luculli de ipsa re ita movit....

In regard to the matter at hand, Catullus, the speech of Lucullus impressed me... And also, later in the same book in section 141:

Tam moveor quam tu, Luculle, neque me minus hominem quam te putaveris.

I am impressed as much as you are, Lucullus, and you mustn't think me less of a man than you are.

So we see in these two examples moveo being used both actively and passively to indicate the modern English idea of being impressed by something.

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    Cool, I was getting a little worried that there might not be an answer.
    – bobsmith76
    Sep 17, 2021 at 7:39

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