Definition of "express"

Beginning with the next issue, which will be the January, 1950, issue, this magazine will be published on the first of every month. This step has been taken at the express wish of readers despite the present paper and production difficulties.

1949 November and December, “Return to Monthly Publication”, in Railway Magazine, page 351

Soon as the potion works, their human countenance, / The express resemblance of the gods, is changed / Into some brutish form, of wolf, or bear, / Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, / All other parts remaining as they were […]

1634, John Milton, edited by Homer Sprague, The Mask of Comus, New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co., published 1876, page 253

The train was moving less fast through the summer night. The swift express had changed into something almost a parliamentary, had stopped three times since Norwich, and now, at long last, was approaching Banton.

1931, Francis Beeding, “1/1”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps‎

Except for the mid-winter period, when the 11.30 a.m. from Paddington and its opposite number will be withdrawn - Torquay now has seven daily expresses to and from Paddington as compared with five down and six up previously.

1961 October, “The winter timetables of British Railways: Western Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 590

This is also a TransPennine Express service which makes a mockery of the word 'express'.

2023 November 1, Philip Haigh, “TPE must choose the right route to a brighter future”, in RAIL, number 995, page 56

"Give me my express," I said, laying down the Winchester, and he handed it to me cocked.

1885, H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines

And this [holy communion] being the great myſtery of Chriſtianity, and the onely remanent expreſſe of Chriſts ſacrifice on earth, it is moſt conſonant to the Analogy of the myſtery, that this commemorative ſacrifice be preſented by perſons as ſeparate, and diſtinct in our miniſtery, […]

1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, “Section V”, in Clerus Domini: or, A Discourse of the Divine Institution, Necessity, Sacrednesse, and Separation of the Office Ministerial. […], London: […] R[ichard] Royston […], published 1655, paragraph 5, page 30

I learned, to my inexpressible terror, that at two o'clock, the day before, an express had been sent to Geraldine by Mr Bergasse, with a letter, which he had received from the Hotel de Romagnecourt.

1792, Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Broadview, published 2001, page 381

She charged him […] to ask at the express if anything came up from town.

1873, Edward Everett Hale, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

popular captations, which some men use in their Speeches, and Expresses

1648, attributed to Charles I of England, Εἰκὼν Βασιλική [Eikōn Basilikē = Royal Portrait]. The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Maiestie, in His Solitvdes and Svfferings

“5th, If an express requires extraordinary despatch, the man-mountain shall be obliged to carry, in his pocket, the messenger and horse a six days journey, once in every moon, and return the said messenger back (if so required) safe to our imperial presence.

1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], part I (A Voyage to Lilliput)

So much was Sir Edward delighted that he sent an express to inform Lord Meersbrook of this great act of friendship, in order that he might be the more easy on their account;...

1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 132

We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine. We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith. As we reached the lodge we heard the whistle, and we backed up against one side of the platform as the train pulled up at the other.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

The people of his island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl […]

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 13”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley

It contained many cysts which were filled with sagolike granules that could be expressed under pressure.

1949, United States Naval Medical Bulletin, volume 49, number 1, page 61

They don’t have teats, so the mothers express their milk onto their bellies for their young to feed.

2018 March 15, Kelsey Munroe, The Guardian‎

When a cell “expresses” a gene, it translates the DNA first into a signature messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence and subsequently into a chain of amino acids that forms a protein.

2015, Ferris Jabr, How Humans Ended Up With Freakishly Huge Brains Wired‎

Whereby they discoursed in silence, and were intuitively understood from the theory of their expresses.

1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, V.20

This Gentleman [...] caused a man to go down no less than a hundred fathom, with express to take notice whether it were hard or soft in the place where it groweth.

1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, II.5