pressed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of press.

   The crowd pressed against the barriers as the gates swung open.

   She pressed the wildflowers between the pages of a heavy book.

   Note

   A regular verb, so one spelling does both jobs: she pressed the button; she has pressed it; it was pressed. Because press covers flattening and ironing, the participle slides easily into describing a result, as in a pressed shirt or pressed flowers. From there the same spelling becomes a true adjective, as in the "short of time" meaning.

2. 2
   adjective

   Under strain from a shortage of time, money, or other resources.

   Like a stretched rubber band with no slack left to give.

   She was pressed for time and skipped breakfast entirely.

   Farmers were pressed for water during the long drought.

   Similarshort

   Note

   The strain usually has a named cause, introduced by for: pressed for time, pressed for cash, pressed for useful intelligence. The adjective is gradable (more pressed, most pressed), and hard intensifies it. Write hard pressed after a verb (he found himself hard pressed) and hard-pressed before a noun (a hard-pressed garrison). Without for, it signals strain in general rather than one particular shortage.

3. 3
   adjective

   Feeling upset or bothered by something.

   She seemed pressed after reading the comments on her photo.

   Don't get so pressed over a missed reservation.

   Similarupset, bothered, annoyed, irritated

   Oppositecalm, unbothered

   Note

   Online slang for being riled up, usually over something the speaker thinks is not worth it. Haters are pressed about a Grammy win, and Evan Ross Katz asks in 2020 why people stay so pressed instead of ignoring a provocation. It follows be, get or stay and takes no for, which sets it apart from the "short of time" meaning. Keep it for casual talk.

4. 4
   adjective

   Recruited into naval or military service by force, through a press gang.

   The pressed men were marched aboard the warship before dawn.

   Fishermen along the coast feared being pressed during wartime.

   Similarimpressed

   Note

   A naval word for men seized by a press gang. It most often appears in the phrase pressed men, and its fuller relative is impressed. Nicholas Rogers's The Press Gang (2008) traces pressed men through ships' muster books, which recorded those impressed both afloat and ashore. The word belongs to the British Royal Navy of the era before the practice ended in the early nineteenth century.

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