Edit page | Page history | Printable version

please

1. To give pleasure to; to excite agreeable sensations or emotions in; to make glad; to gratify; to content; to satisfy. I pray to god that it may plesen you. (Chaucer) What next I bring shall please thee, be assured. (milton)

2. To have or take pleasure in; hence, to choose; to wish; to desire; to will. Whatsoever the lord pleased, that did he. (Ps. Cxxxv. 6) A man doing as he wills, and doing as he pleases, are the same things in common speech. (J. Edwards)

3. To be the will or pleasure of; to seem good to; used impersonally. It pleased the father that in him should all fullness dwell. To-morrow, may it please you. (Shak) To be pleased in or with, to have complacency in; to take pleasure in. To be pleased to do a thing, to take pleasure in doing it; to have the will to do it; to think proper to do it.

Origin: OE. Plesen, OF. Plaisir, fr. L. Placere, akin to placare to reconcile. Cf. Complacent, Placable, Placid, Plea, Plead, Pleasure.