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Contents
easy
Overview
This page has 14 definitions of easy in English and Middle English. Easy is an adjective, an adverb, noun and verb. Examples of how to use easy in a sentence are shown. Also define these 15 related words and terms: comfortable, ease, skill, effort, derogatory, sex, finance, tight, relaxed, casual, governail, take it easy, rowing, easy-oar, and esy.
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle English esy, eesy, partly from Middle English ese (“ease”) + -y, equivalent to ease + -y, and partly from Anglo-Norman eiser from Old French aisié (“eased, at ease, at leisure”), past participle of aisier (“to put at ease”), from aise (“empty space, elbow room, opportunity”), of uncertain origin. See ease. Merged with Middle English ethe, eathe (“easy”), from Old English īeþe, from Proto-Germanic *auþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éwtus (“empty, lonely”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew-. Compare also Old Saxon ōþi, Old High German ōdi, Old Norse auðr, all meaning "easy, vacant, empty." More at ease, eath.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈiːzi/, /ˈiːzɪ/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈizi/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (UK) (file) - Rhymes: -iːzi
Adjective
easy (comparative easier or more easy, superlative easiest or most easy)
- (now rare except in certain expressions) Comfortable; at ease.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:
- “ […] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”
- Now that I know it's taken care of, I can rest easy at night.
Comfortable definition
Providing physical comfort and ease; agreeable. (1 of 7 comfortable definitions)
- Requiring little skill or effort.
- It's often easy to wake up but hard to get up.
- 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
- As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.
- 2015 October 27, Matt Preston, The Simple Secrets to Cooking Everything Better[1], Plum, →ISBN, page 192:
- You could just use ordinary shop-bought kecap manis to marinade the meat, but making your own is easy, has a far more elegant fragrance and is, above all, such a great brag! Flavouring kecap manis is an intensely personal thing, so try this version now and next time cook the sauce down with crushed, split lemongrass and a shredded lime leaf.
- The teacher gave an easy test to her students.
Skill definition
Capacity to do something well; technique, ability. Skills are usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities, which are often thought of as innate. (1 of 4 skill definitions)
Effort definition
The work involved in performing an activity; exertion. (1 of 3 effort definitions)
- Causing ease; giving comfort, or freedom from care or labour.
- Rich people live in easy circumstances.
- an easy chair
- Free from constraint, harshness, or formality; unconstrained; smooth.
- easy manners; an easy style
- 1709, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W. Lewis […], published 1711, OCLC 15810849:
- the easy vigour of a line
- (informal, derogatory, of a woman) Consenting readily to sex.
- She has a reputation for being easy; they say she slept with half the senior class.
Sex definition
A category into which sexually-reproducing organisms are divided on the basis of their reproductive roles in their species. (1 of 8 sex definitions)
- Not making resistance or showing unwillingness; tractable; yielding; compliant.
- 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 403869432:
- He gain'd their easy hearts.
- 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], OCLC 230694662:
- He is […] too tyrannical to be an easy monarch.
- (finance, dated) Not straitened as to money matters; opposed to tight.
- The market is easy.
Synonyms
- (comfortable): relaxed, relaxing
- (not difficult): light, eath
- (consenting readily to sex): fast
- (requiring little skill or effort): soft, trivial
- See also Thesaurus:easy
Antonyms
- (comfortable, at ease): uneasy, anxious
- (requiring little skill or effort): difficult, hard, uneasy, uneath, challenging
Derived terms
Related terms
Descendants
Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Dictionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Adverb
easy (comparative easier, superlative easiest)
- In a relaxed or casual manner.
- 1786, John Jeffries; Jean-Pierre Blanchard, A narrative of the two aerial Voyages of Dr. J. with Mons. Blanchard: with meteorological observations and remarks.[2], page 45:
- We immediately threw out all the little things we had with us, ſuch as biſcuits, apples, &c. and after that one of our oars or wings; but ſtill deſcending, we caſt away the other wing, and then the governail ; having likewiſe had the precaution, for fear of accidents, while the Balloon was filling, partly to looſen and make it go eaſy, I now ſucceeded in attempting to reach without the Car, and unſcrewing the moulinet, with all its apparatus; I likewiſe caſt that into the ſea.
- After his illness, John decided to take it easy.
- Everything comes easy to her.
- In a manner without strictness or harshness.
- Jane went easier on him after he broke his arm.
- At the very least.
- This project will cost 15 million dollars, easy.
Derived terms
Noun
easy (plural easies)
- Something that is easy
Verb
easy (third-person singular simple present easies, present participle easying, simple past and past participle easied)
- (rowing) Synonym of easy-oar
Rowing definition
present participle of row (“propel with oars”)
Easy-Oar definition
To stop rowing.
Anagrams
Middle English
Adjective
easy
- Alternative form of esy
Esy definition
instrumental plural of eso
Adverb
easy
- Alternative form of esy