Imp

The English word imp derives from Old English impa, originally meaning a young shoot or scion of a plant or tree. That botanical sense (a grafted shoot, scion or child) traces through Late Latin/medieval forms and is cognate with Ancient Greek ἔμϕυτος ('implanted, grafted'). Over time, particularly by the early modern period (16th–17th centuries), the term shifted from the idea of a small offspring or scion to denote small supernatural beings; later Christian-influenced usage increasingly associated imps with familiars and attendants of the devil.

Sources describe imps as small in stature and often not conventionally attractive, but their form is variable and emphases in tradition are on liveliness and mischief rather than a fixed anatomy or costume. Imps appear in literary and artistic contexts as lively little figures and also as grotesque or stone-carved figures in architecture (for example, the local Lincoln cathedral legend of a petrified 'Lincoln Imp'). Exact anatomical or dress details are not consistent across the sources.

Imps are chiefly noted for mischief and prankish behaviour — practical jokes that range from harmless to upsetting in some traditions. They appear as solitary tricksters, companions seeking human attention, and in later traditions as familiars or attendants of witches, warlocks, or infernal masters. A recurring motif finds imps bound into objects (swords, bottles, crystal balls) and summoned by a master; such bound imps sometimes grant wishes in literary examples (e.g., Robert Louis Stevenson's story 'The Bottle Imp'). Sources also note that imps, while often imagined as long-lived, can be harmed or contained by certain weapons, enchantments, or wards.