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PLEASING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of one who pleases
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("pleasing" is a kind of...):
gratification (the act or an instance of satisfying)
Derivation:
please (give pleasure to or be pleasing to)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Pleasant or agreeable to the senses
Example:
a pleasing aroma
Classified under:
Similar:
pleasant (affording pleasure; being in harmony with your taste or likings)
Derivation:
pleasingness (the quality of giving pleasure to the senses)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Giving pleasure and satisfaction
Example:
a pleasing piece of news
Classified under:
Similar:
admirable (inspiring admiration or approval)
charming (pleasing or delighting)
delicious; delightful (greatly pleasing or entertaining)
easy (affording pleasure)
fab; fabulous (extremely pleasing)
good (capable of pleasing)
gratifying; sweet (pleasing to the mind or feeling)
ingratiating (capable of winning favor)
sweet (pleasing to the senses)
Also:
attractive (pleasing to the eye or mind especially through beauty or charm)
beautiful (delighting the senses or exciting intellectual or emotional admiration)
humorous; humourous (full of or characterized by humor)
pleasant (affording pleasure; being in harmony with your taste or likings)
Antonym:
displeasing (causing displeasure or lacking pleasing qualities)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb please
Context examples:
But to the cub the spectacle of her protective rage was pleasing.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Anne smiled, and let it pass. It was too pleasing a blunder for a reproach.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
With what sparkling eyes and ready motion she granted his request, and with how pleasing a flutter of heart she went with him to the set, may be easily imagined.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
You'll never look finished if you are not careful about the little details, for they make up the pleasing whole.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
My partiality does not blind me; he certainly is not so handsome as Willoughby—but at the same time, there is something much more pleasing in his countenance.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
An aromatic preparation, often with a pleasing flavor, usually intended to dissolve in the mouth.
(Pastille Dosage Form, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)
Clerval did not like it so well as Oxford, for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing visions I had formed; and thought no tyrant could invent a death into which I would not run with pleasure, from such a life.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
When we came into Lucy's room I could see that Van Helsing had, with his usual forethought, been putting matters straight and making everything look as pleasing as possible.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
