different between pleasure vs pleasance

English

Etymology

From Early Modern English pleasur, plesur, alteration (with ending accommodated to -ure) of Middle English plaisir (“pleasure”), from Old French plesir, plaisir (“to please”), infinitive used as a noun, conjugated form of plaisir or plaire, from Latin place? (“to please, to seem good”), from the Proto-Indo-European *pleh?-k- (“wide and flat”). Related to Dutch plezier (“pleasure, fun”). More at please.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?pl???/
• (General American) enPR: pl?zh??r, IPA^(key): /?pl???/
• Rhymes: -???(?)
• Hyphenation: pleas?ure

Noun

pleasure (countable and uncountable, plural pleasures)

1. (uncountable) A state of being pleased or contented; gratification.

   Synonyms: delight, gladness, gratification, happiness, indulgence, satisfaction

   Antonyms: displeasure, pain
2. (countable) A person, thing or action that causes enjoyment.

   Synonyms: delight, joy

   • Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure
3. (uncountable) One's preference.

   Synonyms: desire, fancy, want, will, wish

4. (formal, uncountable) The will or desire of someone or some agency in power.

   Synonym: discretion

   • He will do his pleasure on Babylon.

Derived terms

Translations

Interjection

pleasure

1. pleased to meet you, "It's my pleasure"

Verb

pleasure (third-person singular simple present pleasures, present participle pleasuring, simple past and past participle pleasured)

1. (transitive) To give or afford pleasure to.

   Synonyms: please, gratify
2. (transitive) To give sexual pleasure to.

3. (intransitive, dated) To take pleasure; to seek or pursue pleasure.

Translations

Related terms

• displeasure
• please
• pleasant

Further reading

• pleasure in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• pleasure in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• serpulae

English

Etymology

Old French plaisance.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pl?z?ns/

Noun

pleasance (countable and uncountable, plural pleasances)

1. (obsolete) Willingness to please, or the action of pleasing; courtesy. [14th-17th c.]
2. (obsolete) The feeling of being pleased; pleasure, delight. [14th-19th c.]
   • 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, in Francis J Child (editor), The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, volume III, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company 1855, OCLC 793557671, page 406, lines 222–228:

     Now stands the Brere like a lord alone, / Puffed up with pryde and vaine pleasaunce.

3. Grounds laid out with shady walks, trees and shrubs, statuary, and ornamental water; a secluded part of a garden. [from 16th c.]
   • 1859, John Ruskin, The Two Paths

     the pleasances of old Elizabethan houses

   • 1924, EM Forster, A Passage to India, Penguin 2005, p. 6:

     It is a tropical pleasance, washed by a noble river.