different between pleasant vs assuasive

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pl?z?nt/
• Rhymes: -?z?nt

Adjective

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

1. Giving pleasure; pleasing in manner.
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Psalm 133.1,^[1]

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

   • 1871, Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter ,^[2]

     “O Oysters, come and walk with us!”

     The Walrus did beseech.

     “A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,

     Along the briny beach:

   • 1989, Hilary Mantel, Fludd, New York: Henry Holt, 2000, Chapter 2, p. 25,^[3]

     “ […] 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,^[4]

     […] 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,^[5]

     […] 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.

Synonyms

• agreeable
• nice

Antonyms

• disagreeable
• nasty
• unpleasant

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

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,^[6]

     […] 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,^[7]

     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:

Anagrams

• planates, platanes

English

Etymology

From assuage (“to relieve, soothe”) on the model of persuasive.

Adjective

assuasive (comparative more assuasive, superlative most assuasive)

1. Mild, soothing.
   • 1713, Alexander Pope, Ode for Musick, London: Bernard Lintott, pp. 2-3,^[1]

     If in the Breast tumultuous Joys arise,

     Musick her soft, assuasive Voice applies;

     Or when the Soul is press’d with Cares

     Exalts her in enlivening Airs.

   • 1854, Charles Dickens, Hard Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, Book 3, Chapter 3, p. 282,^[2]

     “ […] Perhaps,” said Bounderby, starting with all his might at his so quiet and assuasive father-in-law, “you know where your daughter is at the present time?”

   • 1882, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret, Boston: James R. Osgood, 1883, Chapter 12, p. 152,^[3]

     The medicine, whatever it might be, had the merit, rare in doctor’s stuff, of being pleasant to take, assuasive of thirst, and imbued with a hardly perceptible fragrance,

   • 1965, Robert Wilder, Fruit of the Poppy, New York: Putnam, Chapter 1, p. 16,^[4]

     The stuff gagged him but he forced it down. This wasn’t smart but the alcohol had an assuasive effect.

Derived terms

• assuasively

Noun

assuasive (plural assuasives)

1. (archaic) Anything that soothes.
   • 1808, Thomas Coke, A History of the West Indies, Liverpool, Volume 1, Chapter 1, p. 65,^[5]

     […] the heat of the sun operates in all its vigour, without an assuasive to mitigate its force.

   • 1817, Richard Yates, The Basis of National Welfare, London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al., § 9, p. 112,^[6]

     the bland, the courteous, the truly Christian assuasives of friendly attention

   • 1908, Mary Virginia Terhune (as Marion Harland), The Housekeeper’s Week, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Chapter 23, p. 312,^[7]

     Nature, as the laity may know it, is a vast pharmacopœia of assuasives and curatives