Pleasant

How to spell pleasant

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pleasant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pleasant mean?

1. adjectiveGiving a feeling of enjoyment, comfort, or mild satisfaction.

Pleasant in a sentence

• The hotel garden was a pleasant place to read in the afternoon.

• She remembered the trip as a pleasant break from the office.

Where does pleasant come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the Old French plaisant, meaning 'agreeable' or 'pleasing', which was the present participle of the verb plaisir, 'to please'. That French verb traces back to the Latin placere, which literally meant 'to be acceptable' or 'to give satisfaction'. English adopted the word in the 1300s, keeping the sense of something that gives a mild, agreeable feeling. The same Latin placere root still surfaces in relatives such as 'pleasure', 'placid', and 'complacent', all of which share the idea of calm satisfaction. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the 'pleas-' stem hides a silent 'a' before the 's', and the ending is the less common '-ant' rather than the '-ent' that many adults reach for by habit.

How the word is built

• pleas- (from please: to give delight)
• -ant (adjective suffix meaning 'causing' or 'having a quality')