pleasant

Partly from Old French plaisant, partly from Middle English [Term?], present participle of English please. Related to Dutch plezant (“full of fun or pleasure”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈplɛzənt/

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• Rhymes: -ɛzənt

pleasant (comparative pleasanter or more pleasant, superlative pleasantest or most pleasant)

1. 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, King James Version of the Bible, Psalm 133.1,

     Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

   • 1871, Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter ,

     “O Oysters, come and walk with us!”

     The Walrus did beseech.

     “A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,

     Along the briny beach:

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 10, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     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,

     “ […] 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.”

2. (obsolete) Facetious, joking.
   • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act I, Scene 2,

     […] tell the pleasant prince this mock of his

     Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones […]

   • 1600, Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker’s Holiday, London, Dedication,

     […] 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.

• agreeable
• nice

• disagreeable
• nasty
• unpleasant

pleasant (plural pleasants)

1. (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,

     […] 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,

     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:

• platanes