please
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle English plesen, plaisen, borrowed from Old French plaise, conjugated form of plaisir or plaire, from Latin placeō (“to please, to seem good”),[1] from the Proto-Indo-European *pleHk- (“pleasingness, permission”). In this sense, displaced native Old English līcian, whence Modern English like.
Alternative forms
Verb
please (third-person singular simple present pleases, present participle pleasing, simple past and past participle pleased)
- (transitive, intransitive) To make happy or satisfy; to give pleasure to.
- Her presentation pleased the executives.
- I'm pleased to see you've been behaving yourself.
- Our new range of organic foods is sure to please.
- 1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
- And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties ; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay, […].
- 2024 October 2, Philip Haigh, “Different types of passengers require different types of fare”, in RAIL, number 1019, page 54:
- How can an operator be, at the same time, top for overall satisfaction and bottom for value for money? I turned to Anthony Smith for the answer, leaning on his 20 years running Transport Focus and its predecessors.
It's commuters, he explained. "You can't please commuters, you can only not displease them."
- (intransitive, ergative) To desire; to will; to be pleased by.
- Just do as you please.
- He doesn't think, he just says whatever he pleases.
- 1870 July 16, “Our Idler’s Gossip”, in Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Chronicle, volume XXVII, number 708, new series, [Sydney, N.S.W.], page [3], column 2:
- “Will any gentleman please to get outside and make room for a lady?”
Conjugation
Synonyms
Antonyms
Derived terms
Related terms
Descendants
- → Dutch: pleasen
Translations
to make happy or satisfy
|
Etymology 2
Short for if you please, an intransitive, ergative form taken from if it please you[1][2] which is a calque of French s’il vous plaît, which replaced pray.
Alternative forms
- (for the exaggerated way it is often pronounced as the expression of annoyance) puh-lease
Adverb
please (not comparable)
- Used to make a polite request.
- Please, pass the bread.
- Would you please sign this form?
- Could you tell me the time, please?
- May I take your order, please?
- 1983 July 10, Berkeley Breathed, Bloom County, spoken by Yuri Andropov:
- (Michael): Yuri Andropov! What are you doing in my closet of anxieties again?
(Yuri): Uh, oh. This is not 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C.?
(Michael): Does it look like it? You're in the wrong nightmare again!!
(Yuri): ★@#*!?! Soviet maps ... worth nothing! Give, please, directions to White House.
- Used as an affirmative to an offer.
- —May I help you? —(Yes,) please.
- An expression of annoyance, impatience or exasperation.
- Oh, please, do we have to hear that again?
- So it's safe to let a 10-year-old use a gun? Please.
Derived terms
- bitch, please
- OK please
- pl0x
- please excuse my dear Aunt Sally
- please explain
- please find attached
- please God
- please help me
- please pass the salt
- please repeat after me
- please say that again
- please sit down
- please speak more slowly
- please turn left
- please turn right
- plox
- pls
- plz
- pretty please
- time gentlemen please
- will the real someone please stand up
Descendants
Translations
interjection to make a polite request
|
affirmative to an offer
expression of annoyance or impatience
|
Etymology 3
Semantic loan from German bitte (“please; excuse me”).[3][4]
Interjection
please
- (Cincinnati) Said as a request to repeat information.[5]
- August 1973, “Bitte or Bitter?”, in Cincinnati, page 109:
- Fellow: May I have a few days off to get married?
Reply, in the Cincinnati idiom by a boss who had heard the sound but not the sense:
Boss: Please?
- September 1978, Virginia Watson-Rouslin, “A Foreign View”, in Cincinnati, page 110:
- Even though I heard it was supposed to be German-Catholic background, there’s only one thing German — they say ‘please’ [for the more common ‘pardon me’], which comes from bitte.
- September 1979, “Winners: Contest No. 13—The Laugh’s On Us”, in Cincinnati, volume 12, number 12, page 15:
- […] He explained in broken English that one of his daughters was ill and he probably could not be there. I did not understand all that he said, so asked, ‘Please?’ per Cincinnati custom. ‘There is no need to plead. I will be there if she is feeling better,’ he replied.
- April 2001, Jeff Robinson, “Say what?”, in Ohio Magazine, archived from the original on 2 April 2019, page 77:
- By the same token, one contestant who doesn’t hear a particular question could say “Pardon me?” while another could say “Please?” Again, neither would be lying if he said he was from Ohio.
- 2008, Henry Hitchings, The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English, →ISBN, page 255:
- In Maine, where as much as a quarter of the population has French ancestry, you may hear a stray hair called a couette, and in parts of Ohio please is used in the same way as the German bitte, to invite a person to repeat something just said — apparently a remnant of the bilingual schooling once available in Cincinnati.
- 2011, Ellen McIntyre, Nancy Hulan, Vicky Layne, Reading Instruction for Diverse Classrooms: Research-Based, Culturally Responsive Practice, Guilford Press, →ISBN, page 72:
- Ellen grew up outside of Cincinnati and believed her own talk was the “norm,” while others were speakers of dialects. She was in graduate school before she learned that not all people say, Please? to mean Can you repeat that?
Synonyms
- (request to repeat): what, excuse me, pardon me, come again; see also Thesaurus:say again
References
- “please”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “please”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
Anagrams
Wikiwand in your browser!
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
