![]() By all accounts, Imps are small, bony, unattractive creatures. The Imp’s appearance certainly doesn’t help him ingratiate himself with others. Nature Characteristics Physical Description Imps are also portrayed as a servant to those of fey and magical being, such as wizards. Since their time they have become more overlooked as not many people actually know what they are. Imps frequently appear in children's stories such as 'Silvia' in which she is followed by a black Imp. Imps can be found in art and architecture throughout the world, usually carefully and painstakingly hidden under the eaves of a church or the foot of a ceramic cup, so they can only be found by the most interested and observant of people. This was the object of the 1891 story The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson, which told of an imp contained in a bottle that would grant the owner their every wish, the catch being that the owner's soul would be sent to hell if they didn't sell the bottle to a new owner before their death. Some even had the ability to grant their owners wishes. In other cases imps were simply kept in a certain object and summoned only when their masters had need of them. Imps have also been described as being "bound" or contained in some sort of object, such as a sword or crystal ball. During the time of the witch hunts, supernatural creatures such as imps were sought out as proof of witchcraft, though often the so called "imp" was typically a black cat, lizard, toad or some other form of uncommon pet. To this end it came to be believed that imps were the familiar spirit servants of witches and warlocks, where the little demons served as spies and informants. Being associated with Jinnestan and fire, imps take a particular pleasure from playing with temperatures. This trait gave way to using the term "impish" for someone who loves pranks and practical jokes. They often used jokes and pranks as a means of attracting human friendship, which often backfired when people became tired or annoyed of the imp's endeavors, usually driving it away.Įven if the imp was successful in getting the friendship it sought, it often still played pranks and jokes on its friend, either out of boredom or simply because this was the nature of the imp. Imps were often portrayed as lonely little creatures always in search of human attention. Though imps are often thought of as being immortal, many cultures believed that they could be damaged or harmed by certain weapons and enchantments, or be kept out of people's homes by the use of wards. Most of the time, the pranks were harmless fun, but some could be upsetting and harmful, such as switching babies or leading travellers astray in places with which they were not familiar. Imps were fond of pranks and misleading people. Their behavior is described as being wild and uncontrollable. Imps are often shown as small and not very attractive creatures. Imps were often mischievous rather than evil or harmful, and in some regions they were portrayed as attendants of the gods. It should also be noted that demons in Germanic legends were not necessarily always evil. Send us feedback.Originating from Germanic folklore, the imp was a small lesser demon. These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'imp.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. 2020 Recent Examples on the Web: Verb Imping, her father had called this sort of frenzied picking. Lidija Haas, The New Republic, 29 June 2021 Are Descartes’ almost perfect illusionist, Laplace’s nearly omniscient intelligence and Maxwell’s entropy-resistant imp really as tangible as a microchip or a shock wave? 2021 Hell on Earth is imminent, and Coy Blackler’s only real ally is Harper, a fellow test pilot/guinea pig whose symbiotic relationship with a cherubim-ish imp also is highly unstable.Īl, 23 July 2021 In a sense, Keough gets to play the film’s presiding artist, an imp of the perverse who sets things in motion just to see what might happen. 2021 Presiding above it all is Pesce himself, an imp in Issey Miyake, delighting in his creations, wonky and Wonka. 2021 The stories about its little, red-haired imp and his pranks still retain cult status today. 2021 The show's sixth and final season pits Supergirl and her Super Friends against Nyxly (Peta Sergeant), a vengeful Fifth Dimensional imp who is desperately searching for seven magical totems that, when combined, will give her ultimate power.ĮW.com, 28 Oct. Hedley Twidle, Harper's Magazine, 23 Nov. Imp meaning plus#Recent Examples on the Web: Noun Together, the five –- plus an extra character, a pet imp named Beans – completed the Dire Dogs.Īnnie Nickoloff, cleveland, In South African mythology, the tokoloshe is a malicious imp that preys on its victims at night. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |