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Contents
pleasant definition
Overview
This page has 3 definitions of pleasant in English. Pleasant is an adjective and noun. Examples of how to use pleasant in a sentence are shown. Also define these 0 related words and terms: .
See also: Pleasant
English
Etymology
From Middle English plesaunte, from Old French plaisant. Present participle of English please. Related to Dutch plezant (“full of fun or pleasure”). Partly displaced Old English wynsum, which became Modern English winsome.
Pronunciation
Adjective
pleasant (comparative pleasanter or more pleasant, superlative pleasantest or most pleasant)
- Giving pleasure; pleasing in manner.
- We had a pleasant walk around the town.
- It wasn't so hot outside, but pleasant enough to have lunch in the garden.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Psalm 133:1:
- Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
- 1871 December 27 (indicated as 1872), Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, London: Macmillan and Co., OCLC 1079211351:
- “O Oysters, come and walk with us!” / The Walrus did beseech. / “A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, / Along the briny beach:
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:
- It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room. Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch was pleasant.
- 1989, Hilary Mantel, Fludd, New York: Henry Holt, 2000, Chapter 2, p. 25,[1]
- “ […] If you pray to St. Anne before twelve o’clock on a Wednesday, you’ll get a pleasant surprise before the end of the week.”
- (obsolete) Facetious, joking.
- 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene ii]:
- [T]ell the pleasant prince this mock of his / Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones […]
- 1600, Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker’s Holiday, London, Dedication,[2]
- […] I present you here with a merrie conceited Comedie, called the Shoomakers Holyday, acted by my Lorde Admiralls Players this present Christmasse, before the Queenes most excellent Maiestie. For the mirth and pleasant matter, by her Highnesse graciously accepted; being indeede no way offensiue.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations
giving pleasure; pleasing in manner
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Noun
pleasant (plural pleasants)
- (obsolete) A wit; a humorist; a buffoon.
- 1603, Philemon Holland (translator), The Philosophie, commonlie called the Morals written by the learned philosopher Plutarch of Chæronea, London, p. 1144,[3]
- […] Galba was no better than one of the buffons or pleasants that professe to make folke merry and to laugh.
- 1696, uncredited translator, The General History of the Quakers by Gerard Croese, London: John Dunton, Book 2, p. 96,[4]
- Yea, in the Courts of Kings and Princes, their Fools, and Pleasants, which they kept to relax them from grief and pensiveness, could not show themselves more dexterously ridiculous, than by representing the Quakers, or aping the motions of their mouth, voice, gesture, and countenance:
- 1603, Philemon Holland (translator), The Philosophie, commonlie called the Morals written by the learned philosopher Plutarch of Chæronea, London, p. 1144,[3]