different between pleasant vs profitable

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

Old French profitable.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p??f?t?bl?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p??f?t?bl?/
• Hyphenation: prof?it?a?ble

Adjective

profitable (comparative more profitable, superlative most profitable)

1. Producing a profit.
2. Beneficial, serviceable, of use.
   • c. 1521, John Skelton, “Speke Parott”:

     I wylbe ferme and ?tabyll
     And to yow ?eruyceabyll
     And also prophytabyll
     Yf ye be agreabyll
     My propyr Be??e
     To turne a gayne to me

   • 1953, ?Richmond Lattimore, Aeschylus, "Prometheus Bound", in Greek Tragedies

     It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.

Synonyms

• lucrative
• beneficial

Antonyms

• unprofitable

Derived terms

Translations

French

Etymology

From profiter +? -able

Adjective

profitable (plural profitables)

1. profitable

Further reading

• “profitable” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Old French

Etymology

profiter +? -able.

Adjective

profitable m (oblique and nominative feminine singular profitable)

1. useful; usable; that one can make use of

Descendants

• ? English: profitable
• French: profitable

References

• profitable on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub