impresario
pronunciation
How to pronounce impresario in British English:
UK [ˌɪmprəˈsɑ:riəʊ]
How to pronounce impresario in American English:
US [ˌɪmprəˈsɑrioʊ]
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- Noun:
- a sponsor who books and stages public entertainments
Word Origin
- impresario
- impresario: [18] Impresario has no etymological connection with ‘impressing’ people (often though it is mistakenly spelled impressario). It was borrowed from Italian, where it was a derivative of impresa ‘undertaking’. This in turn came from the verb imprendere ‘undertake’, which goes back to a hypothetical Vulgar Latin *imprendere (source of the archaic English emprise ‘enterprise’ [13]), a compound based on Latin prendere ‘take’. Hence an impresario is literally someone who ‘undertakes’ something.
- impresario (n.)
- 1746, from Italian impresario "operatic manager," literally "undertaker (of a business)," from impresa "undertaking," fem. of impreso, past participle of imprendere "undertake," from Vulgar Latin imprendere, from assimilated form of in- "into, in, on, onto" (see in- (2)) + prehendere "to grasp" (see prehensile).
Example
- 1. Here is this rock and roll impresario , he 's gonna destroy belly dance .
- 2. He 's become london 's leading theatrical impresario .
- 3. In effect , lee combined his ambitions as a music impresario with his training as an engineer to create the blueprint for what became the k-pop idol assembly line .
- 4. The former spymaster on citi 's board and the theatrical impresario on lehman 's may have been happy to ask questions , but were they the right ones ?
- 5. E.g. the impresario will present an expanded series of concerts next season .