enjoyment
Americannoun
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enjoyments
plural
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the act of enjoying.
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the possession, use, or occupancy of anything with satisfaction or pleasure.
to have the enjoyment of a large income.
- Synonyms:
- gratification, delight
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a particular form or source of pleasure.
Hunting is his greatest enjoyment.
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Law. the exercise of a right.
the enjoyment of an estate.
noun
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the act or condition of receiving pleasure from something
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the use or possession of something that is satisfying or beneficial
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something that provides joy or satisfaction
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the possession or exercise of a legal right
Synonym Usage
See pleasure.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of enjoyment
Explanation
Enjoyment is what you experience when you are having a good time. You probably experience enjoyment in an amusement park, and a lack of enjoyment at the dentist. When you enjoy something, you like doing it. Enjoyment is a word for the pleasure that comes from enjoyable activities. Lots of people get enjoyment from reading, seeing movies, watching TV, and playing video games. Hanging out with friends is another common form of enjoyment. If you dislike doing something, then it brings you no enjoyment. Enjoyment is the opposite of feelings like boredom and misery.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The crowd’s enjoyment was palpable as it exited the theater.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Skidelsky demonstrates that Keynes’s desire to enable more people to experience the higher goods identified by Moore, such as friendship and aesthetic enjoyment, inclined Keynes to approach economics as “an end-satisfying system.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
In mice, the medications reduced hedonic feeding, which means eating for enjoyment rather than because the body needs energy.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026
Unlike Amelia, Aimee Cummings has always loved books, with stories about love central to her enjoyment.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
Not only would she not touch it herself, but she resisted its enjoyment by anyone else.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
He hoped that he would be able to eat faseekh, a fermented fish dish, the simplest of Eid enjoyments, he said.
From New York Times ● Apr. 10, 2024
Catherine Rampell nailed it in her Dec. 31 op-ed, “Pandemic tears of joy”: Revisit the simple enjoyments as you would revisit friends you haven’t seen in a while.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 4, 2022
Mrs Samia made reference to the nightlife and other enjoyments the Kenya capital has to offer - but which has been curtailed because of the Covid-19 overnight curfew:
From BBC ● May 6, 2021
“Re-engaging with the same object, even just once, allows a reworking of experiences as consumers consider their own particular enjoyments and understandings of choices they have made.”
From The Guardian ● Feb. 19, 2017
For millions of others, about to lose one of their greatest enjoyments, it was hardly something to cheer about.
From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
