satisfaction
Pluralsatisfactions (some meanings)
- 1The pleasure that comes from fulfilling a need or desire.
He looked over the finished garden with quiet satisfaction.
Helping others gave her a sense of satisfaction she had never known before.
Similarcontentment, pleasure, fulfillment, gratification, pride
Oppositedissatisfaction, discontent, displeasure, frustration
Note
This is the feeling rather than the fulfilment, and it often settles into the phrase "to someone's satisfaction". Robert W. Chambers's The Younger Set (1907) ends a scene "to everybody's exquisite satisfaction", and an adjective such as quiet, deep or exquisite sets how strong the feeling is. Thoreau, writing in 1860, sets it against grievance: life "is not for complaint, but for satisfaction."
- 2The meeting or fulfilling of a need or desire.
The satisfaction of his curiosity required hours in the library.
Payments continued until satisfaction of the full debt.
Similarfulfillment, gratification, settlement, discharge, payment
Oppositefrustration
- 3
- 4Compensation or amends made to make up for an injury or loss.
The court ordered full satisfaction for the family's losses.
He sought satisfaction from the firm whose negligence ruined his crop.
Similarcompensation, restitution, reparation, redress, amends
- 5The vindication or redress obtained after a person has suffered a wrong.
The public apology gave her the satisfaction she had long demanded.
He pursued the lawsuit for satisfaction rather than for money.
Similarvindication, redress, justice, amends
Note
Amends owed to honor rather than to the purse, and the vocabulary of the duel: a wronged party "demanded satisfaction", sometimes at pistol point at dawn. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night describes a brawler whose rage is "so implacable, that satisfaction can be none". Today the phrase is used figuratively, for an apology or a verdict. The compensation sense is the one that makes good a loss.
- 6The pleasure derived from sexual activity or intimacy.
Sexual satisfaction is an important part of many lasting relationships.
She wrote candidly about the satisfaction she found with her partner.
Similarpleasure, fulfillment, gratification, enjoyment
Oppositefrustration, dissatisfaction
Note
A euphemism that names the result instead of the act. It usually needs a qualifier to carry the sexual meaning, as in sexual satisfaction or oral satisfaction. A 1976 personal advertisement in Gay Community News uses the qualified phrase quite directly. Without a qualifier, satisfaction drifts back to the general sense of pleasure, so in careful writing the modifier is what keeps the meaning clear.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English "satisfaccioun," from Old French "satisfaccion" and Latin "satisfactiō" (stem "satisfactiōnis").