pleasing

Pluralpleasings

1. 1
   adjective

   Agreeable and giving a sense of pleasure, cheer, enjoyment, or satisfaction to those who experience it.

   The room's layout was both practical and pleasing to the eye.

   Critics found the film's quiet, unhurried pacing surprisingly pleasing.

   Similarpleasant, agreeable, appealing, attractive, satisfying

   Oppositeunpleasant, displeasing, disagreeable, unappealing

   Note

   A present participle that settled into an adjective: Middle English plesende, please plus -ing. Because it is a true adjective now, it grades with more and most and takes very freely. Two constructions carry much of its use: pleasing to someone or something (pleasing to the eye) and pleasing in some respect (pleasing in appearance). Before a noun it simply rates the thing, as in a pleasing, well-planned building.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of please.

   The chef takes great pride in pleasing every diner who walks in.

   Pleasing a tough audience takes real skill and timing.

   Note

   The verb form that the adjective grew out of. The surest way to tell them apart is an object: in takes pride in pleasing every diner, someone is being pleased. In a very pleasing room, no one is, and very fits. Because please can also stand without an object, a bare pleasing after was can lean either way, so test it with very. As a gerund it fills noun slots: Pleasing a tough audience takes skill.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Satisfaction or delight, especially in the phrase "to someone's pleasing," meaning to their liking.

   The arrangement of the furniture was very much to her pleasing.

   Everything at the inn had been laid out to the guest's pleasing.

   Similarliking, satisfaction, taste, pleasure

   Note

   A separate noun with its own history: Middle English plesing already meant "satisfaction." Its natural home is the phrase to someone's pleasing, meaning to their satisfaction. It can also be counted. Isaac Barrow, writing before 1678, uses the plural in fond self-pleasings, meaning acts of pleasing oneself. Keep it apart from the gerund, which names the act of pleasing someone rather than the satisfaction they feel.

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