Imping

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. To strike against or collide with something ; to have an effect on or influence a situation or person
2. To hit or contact with force or pressure ; to come into contact and alter or impact
3. To physically meet or push against something ; to impose a change or have an effect on circumstances

Etymology: The verb "imp" in its sense of striking against something, as in a bird's wing or a falcon's feathers, is one of the more unusual routes to a modern word. The falconry sense comes from Middle English "impen" and "ympen," meaning to mend a falcon's broken feather by attaching a new one to the stump. That sense grew out of an older idea of grafting, since Old English "impian" meant to graft a plant, and the root goes back through Vulgar Latin "imputō" to Ancient Greek "emphytos," meaning implanted or planted. Grafting and feather repair share a single picture: a new piece set into an existing stump so it takes hold and grows. The noun "imp" once meant a shoot, sprig, or young tree, and the falconry and grafting senses both sprang from that gardening vocabulary. The modern verb "imp," meaning to strike against something, keeps a trace of that original sense of fitting one thing into another.