pleasure
Americannoun
-
pleasures
plural
-
the state or feeling of being pleased.
- Synonyms:
- delectation, gladness, happiness
-
enjoyment or satisfaction derived from what is to one's liking; gratification; delight.
-
worldly or frivolous enjoyment.
the pursuit of pleasure.
-
recreation or amusement; diversion; enjoyment.
Are you traveling on business or for pleasure?
-
sensual gratification.
- Synonyms:
- voluptuousness
-
a cause or source of enjoyment or delight.
It was a pleasure to see you.
-
pleasurable quality.
the pleasure of his company.
-
one's will, desire, or choice.
to make known one's pleasure.
- Synonyms:
- predilection, inclination, wish, preference
verb (used with object)
-
pleasures,
present (3rd person singular)
-
pleasured,
past participle, past
-
pleasuring
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
pleasures,
present (3rd person singular)
-
pleasured,
past participle, past
-
pleasuring
present participle
-
to take pleasure; delight.
I pleasure in your company.
-
to seek pleasure, as by taking a holiday.
noun
-
an agreeable or enjoyable sensation or emotion
the pleasure of hearing good music
-
something that gives or affords enjoyment or delight
his garden was his only pleasure
-
-
amusement, recreation, or enjoyment
-
( as modifier )
a pleasure boat
pleasure ground
-
-
euphemistic sexual gratification or enjoyment
he took his pleasure of her
-
a person's preference or choice
verb
Synonym Usage
Pleasure, enjoyment, delight, joy refer to the feeling of being pleased and happy. Pleasure is the general term: to take pleasure in beautiful scenery. Enjoyment is a quiet sense of well-being and pleasurable satisfaction: enjoyment at sitting in the shade on a warm day. Delight is a high degree of pleasure, usually leading to active expression of it: delight at receiving a hoped-for letter. Joy is a feeling of delight so deep and so lasting that one radiates happiness and expresses it spontaneously: joy at unexpected good news.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
pleasuresimple
-
pleasuressimple
-
have pleasuredperfect
-
has pleasuredperfect
-
am pleasuringprogressive
-
are pleasuringprogressive
-
is pleasuringprogressive
-
have been pleasuringperfect progressive
-
has been pleasuringperfect progressive
Past
-
pleasuredsimple
-
had pleasuredperfect
-
was pleasuringprogressive
-
were pleasuringprogressive
-
had been pleasuringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pleasure
First recorded in 1325–75; late Middle English ( see please, -ure); replacing Middle English plaisir, from Middle French (noun use of infinitive), from Latin placēre “to please”
Explanation
Pleasure is a general term for good feelings. People get pleasure from eating, sleeping, watching TV, or anything else they enjoy. Pleasure is the opposite of pain. Pain feels bad, but pleasure feels good. People talk about sexual pleasure, but that's just one kind. People get pleasure from delicious foods, great movies, beautiful music, and all sorts of other things. Something as small as a comfortable chair and something as big as your candidate being elected President can bring pleasure. If you had a good time hosting your friends for lunch, you can tell them "It was a pleasure."
Vocabulary lists containing pleasure
Spelling Practice, Unit 3
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Selection Vocabulary 3, Unit 6
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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:
"It was a privilege to be part of his journey, and he will be remembered with great fondness by everyone who had the pleasure of knowing him."
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
But it cannot offer the particular surprise of encountering another person who has decided, for no reason other than the pleasure of it, to show me something strange and wonderful.
From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2026
TMO: Speaking of pleasure, how do you treat yourself after you premiere a collection on the runway?
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
It’s a unique pleasure to read his final, rueful work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
“Always interfering where she wasn’t wanted. And now, look at her. I could help her, of course. It would be easy. Therefore, it gives me no small amount of pleasure to refuse to do so.”
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
In “Death of an Ordinary Man,” Ms. Perry offers an endearing and achingly real portrait of her father-in-law: his set ways, gentle pleasures, sweet tooth and general contentment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
Could there be a place where Joan and Jean don’t have to sacrifice their codependent sisterly bond to enjoy life’s pleasures?
From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2026
They talk to David Wallace Lockhart about their party’s failures, the route to indyref2 and guilty pleasures.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
My husband enjoyed humble pleasures, and he had two favorite fast-casual restaurants where the food was good, the patrons were kind, and the staff were simply salt-of-the-earth people.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 11, 2026
Turner played hymn after hymn, repeating a few verses when she hummed to the chorus, taking care to avoid the ones that suggested the pleasures of leaving this weary world.
From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt
Mayor Bill de Blasio let out a pleasured tweet of thanks, saluting the State Senate’s co-leaders, the Democrat Klein and that noted progressive, the Republican Dean Skelos.
From New York Times ● Mar. 18, 2014
There the exiled King has pleasured himself with poker, backgammon, golf, visits to the El Patio nightclub, and a social whirl with some of the fastest climbers in Mexico.
From Time Magazine Archive
Schoolma'am Marie Campbell, who put together this book, was pleasured a heap to sit alistening to the olden tales and to write them down so they would keep.
From Time Magazine Archive
Last week he pleasured newshawks by presenting his weekly press conference with two enormous South Carolina melons, 3 ft. long and weighing, by report, 80 Ib. each.
From Time Magazine Archive
Summer's heat nor winter's cold neither vexed nor pleasured him.
From Red Axe by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
The act set Yellowstone aside as “a pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”
From Washington Post ● Feb. 25, 2022
"Heartbroken at the passing of Bert — a talented, kind young man who I had the pleasuring of working with numerous times on #LetsStayTogether," she tweeted.
From Fox News ● Nov. 9, 2020
They videotaped one year’s pleasuring, he says, and “one pig caught its hoof in a grate and had a little drop of blood on its hoof.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 6, 2011
In that year Congress designated a vast area in what are now the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as a public "pleasuring ground."
From Time Magazine Archive
"It is time there was a sterner hand at the helm, and not so much pleasuring."
From A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia by Amanda Minnie Douglas
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.
