Did you know?
Concerts, music festivals, television series, professional wrestling matches—these are quite the undertakings. Luckily, there’s a word for the impressive individuals responsible for organizing and overseeing such productions: impresario. In the 1700s, English borrowed impresario directly from Italian, whose noun impresa means “undertaking.” (A close relative is the English word emprise, “an adventurous, daring, or chivalric enterprise,” which, like impresario, traces back to the Latin verb prehendere, meaning “to seize.”) At first English speakers used impresario as the Italians did, to refer to opera company managers, though today it is used much more broadly. It should be noted that, despite their apparent similarities, impress and impresario are not related. Impress is a descendant of the Latin verb pressare, a form of the word premere, meaning “to press.”
Examples of impresario in a Sentence
David Morris, Travel + Leisure, 4 Mar. 2026
Among the most exciting new releases this month are candid celebrity memoirs from a sitcom star and a 1980s East Village impresario; novels that explore outsider perspectives; and a father-son true story that speaks to a powerful if often cryptic bond.
—Hamilton Cain, Time, 3 Mar. 2026
Played by Steve Coogan, Wilson was a TV presenter turned record label impresario who was involved with groups such as Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and many more.
—Los Angeles Times, 27 Feb. 2026
Three-time Grammy winner Megan Thee Stallion will make her Broadway debut as the impresario Zidler in Moulin Rouge!
—Greg Evans, Deadline, 26 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for impresario
Cite this Entry
“Impresario.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/impresario. Accessed 18 Mar. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
impresario
noun
