Hi, I remember once learning the word “depress” in third grade in my advanced class as in “to depress a button”. I’ve only ever heard “press a button”, does anyone still use “depress” in the context of to press down on?
Yes, generally either as you said for “depressing” something, or when referring to a valley or a void in something as a “depression”.
Just remember that depressing a button is not the same thing as making a button sad sometimes
Exactly. Depression is NOT just sadness, but bigger
I think I have seen this more commonly in technical documents than everyday English, maybe there is a reason for that or maybe it just sounds better in that context.
I’ve recently read it on a hotel key card in the instructions: insert key card and depress lever.
I think it used to be one of the original meanings of the word lol.
You can press, depress, re-press, unpress, and compress. Are they all different, are they the same? Hard to say but if you ever write a manual or procedure try to pick one and stick with it.
Yes.
Sure. Absolutely correct for pressing down on a button or something similar
For other stuff, it’s not common, but I think it’s technically correct.
Depending on what it is, “compress” might be a better term than “depress”, though.
Tongue depressor is a common example of this use case.
Also many car manuals tell you to depress the brake to start the vehicle.
I think it’s used for when something is kept lowered for a bit - so yes, some buttons, but most notably Jam Lids and Levers. Many buttons spring back up at you so those are just presses or taps
It’s weird because the words desynchronize, de-stress, decriminalize mean un-synchronize, un-stress, un-criminalize
So it would seem like depress should mean un-press (let go of the button).
But depress = press !
