impressionisticadj.

1886 Sat. Rev. 11 Dec. 782 In what is called impressionistic painting you paint something to suggest the temporary mood in which you looked at a certain scene or effect.

1891 Athenæum 28 Feb. 282/3 A new volume of poems, consisting of short impressionistic lyrics.

1891 G. Meredith Let. 15 Apr. (1970) II. 1025 You have at times..insisted on your impressions. That is, you have put on your cap, sharpened your pencil, and gone afield as the Impressionistic poet.

1894 Brit. Jrnl. Photogr. 41 Suppl. 4 The hideous plague of impressionistic smudges.

1900 Atlantic Monthly LXXXVI. 78 As for the impressionistic writer about literature—he is apt to concern himself very little with this historical origin of a work of art.

1908 W. H. Daly Debussy 32 Debussy's music..deals..in suggestions... There is something swift, vague, and elusive, but strangely vivid and satisfying... But the broad, impressionistic methods are not taken to avoid difficulties of definition.

1909 W. James Pluralistic Universe ii. 52 Impressionistic philosophizing, like impressionistic watch-making or land-surveying, is intolerable to experts.

1915 J. Huneker Ivory, Apes & Peacocks 38 Laforgue..was an ardent advocate of the Impressionistic painters.

1921 Times Lit. Suppl. 24 Feb. 114/1 The impressionistic reporter who asked Mr. Edison what he considered the chief mark of a truly valuable invention.

1933 PMLA 48 598 Such rather impressionistic terminology has been found suggestive and helpful in teaching.

1934 S. R. Nelson All about Jazz v. 101 All these are impressionistic music of the programme type.

1947 A. Einstein Music Romantic Era vii. 69 Berlioz..made the two middle movements nothing but picturesque scenes—most finely impressionistic, most genuinely akin to French plein air painting.

1955 R. Blesh Shining Trumpets (ed. 3) xii. 268 An impressionistic montage of solo moods.

1958 R. A. Bone Negro Novel in Amer. ii. 68 The style is appropriately impressionistic, full of hyphenated adjectives aimed at vivid impressions of Harlem life.

1962 Listener 25 Jan. 195/3 Delius's impressionistic elusiveness.

1962 Listener 25 Jan. 196/1 Its impressionistic string, harp and horn texture.

1973 College Eng. 34 1103 Prosodic studies have tended toward tentative, impressionistic assertions and ad hoc methodology.

1939 H. Kurath Handbk. Ling. Geogr. New Eng. iv. 122 The field workers' phonetic notations..are not phonemic, but on the contrary intentionally phonic, that is impressionistic.

1940 Amer. Speech 15 145 This paper makes no claim to presenting a detailed impressionistic analysis of PM [i.e. Piedmont, U.S.] phonetics; it attempts merely to indicate a relative phonemic distribution.

1948 R. A. Hall Leave Your Lang. Alone! ii. vi. 41 Trying to describe sounds in auditory, impressionistic terms is likely to give about as accurate results as would, say, describing chemical elements in terms of their smells. The impressions we get through our senses of hearing and smell just can't be stated in clear and analyzable enough terms to be of any use in scientific work.

1960 D. Jones Outl. Eng. Phonetics (ed. 9) 349 Systematic transcriptions have to be distinguished from transcriptions made on a general phonetic basis without reference to the needs of any particular language. The latter may be described as ‘non~systematic’ or ‘impressionistic’.

1962 H. Orton Surv. Eng. Dial.: Introd. i. 18 The merits and demerits of the impressionistic method need not be re-stated here.

1963 Amer. Speech 38 127 The recording of the speech sounds is phonic (impressionistic) in intent. All premature phonemicization is strictly avoided.