imbue and imbrue and shakespeare and oxford latin dictionary

There really are more "ims" than I have described, but this essay will conclude my treatment of them "for now." I complete these "ims" with two words that actually have a great deal of utility for those who want to speak and write well.

Imbue/Imbrue

I remember being very proud of myself in high school when I learned what I thought was the difference between imbue and imbrue. At that time I learned that imbrue carried the connotation of "drench," with the most frequent object of the verb being "blood" or "sweat." "He sheathed his sword, imbrued as it was with blood." I learned that imbue, however, carried the notion of "permeating" or "suffusing," so that one could say, "imbued with energy, she eagerly completed the task." Whereas imbrued had a slightly sinister connotation, imbued had a more positive field of meaning for me. Especially after I dove deeply into the shallow pool of theology, I found myself using imbue everytime I thought about God. Thus, the terms were firmly present but separated in my mind. Since very few others knew the terms, I could use them when I wanted. I don't think I elicited any stares or "ohh's" from crowds (like when I use the word dolichocephalian), but I surely impressed people with my linguistic skill.

Reaching for the Oxford Latin Dictionary

But, as I returned to these terms in 2005, I began to see that I may have spoken too quickly. To use a term from the doctrine of the Trinity, I may have separated things that should only be distinguished [Lawyers really should first be trained in theology, and then their verbal legerdemain will be consummate]. Here is what I mean. When beginning my study of these terms, I decided to begin at the beginning: the OLD. So, I looked up imbuo, there being no verb imbruo--since it owes its origin, as the OED says, to the Old French embruever.

But, before we get drenched in Old French, let's see what the OLD says about imbuo. Though it gives four definitions for imbuo, only two are really necessary to mention. First, it can mean "to drench (with a liquid), steep, imbrue, wet" or "stain with one's blood." Second, it carries the notion of "permeate, imbue, imbue with." So, for example, a Latin author could say "after it was imbued with the blood of the robber." Thus, the Latin word imbuo carries both the notion of drenching and permeating. Maybe, I thought, my neat high school categorization didn't tell the whole story.

Imbue

When we come into English, we find the two verbs, imbrue and imbue, but interestingly enough, imbrue, the non-Latin derived term, is attested far earlier than imbue. Indeed, Samuel Johnson, who put together his own dictionary of English in the mid-18th century, could say of imbue in 1755: "Imbue...this word, which seems wanted in our language, has been proposed by several writers, but not yet adopted by the rest." There are attestations to its use going back to the 16th century, and I think I disagree with Johnson that it was not really "adopted" until after his time, but its use may have been sparse. For example, Milton uses it in PL (1667) in the way I first learned it (suffuse; permeate): "Thy words with Grace Divine imbu'd." Philosophers also could use the term. Berkeley says (1736): "To imbue the multitude with such notions as may control their appetites." But it could also be used from the 16th century in the way that I learned imbrue (drench; saturate; dye). "They had their bones, their sinews, and their flesh, so imbewed with Manna, and his qualities, that..they longed after nothing else." Then, from Byron in the 19th century, an arresting use: "Parting day/ Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues/ With a new colour as it gasps away."

Imbrue

So, the word imbrue has five definitions, according to the OED, the first four of them having to do with staining or dyeing an object or "to stain with blood." The older usages don't seemingly have much to do with blood: "Whanne ye shalle drynke, your mouthe clence..Your handes eke that they in no manere Imbrowe (dirty or stain) the cup." Or, from a 1579 sermon, "How can a man touche whot pitche..and be not embrued?" By the time of Shakespeare, a generation later, however, the "blood" meaning rushes to the fore. In 2 Hen. IV, he uses the term "in a pregnant sense" (according to the OED): "What? shall we have Incision? Shall we embrew?" Or, from his delightful MSD, "Come trusty sword: Come blade, my breast imbrue." It can also carry the connotation of "soak": "The stones were imbrued with the tears of her devout eyes." But about 80 percent of the OED quotations have something to do with blood. As Pope has it in his translation of the Iliad, "What chief, what hero, first embru'd the field?" Yet, the fifth OED definition is "to steep in; to imbue with." "Cornelius Agrippa was imbrewed with Heresies that grew up in his time."

Conclusion

What are we to say to this? Certainly not, with the Apostle Paul, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31). I think I would say that the terms are imbued and even imbrued with each other. Why not look at them as terms in a continuum rather than as oppositional? As one moves along the line from bedaubing to staining to dyeing to drenching to immeating to pervading to suffusing, we move along the path from imbrue to imbue. But both can also reach to the utter extreme of the other's seemingly safe and unique definitional field. Thus, we are invited, by the history of language, to relax our tight definitional categories of these words. And, isn't that a breath of fresh air that now imbues (or does it imbrue) the room?

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