complaisant
pronunciation
How to pronounce complaisant in British English:
UK [kəmˈpleɪzənt]
How to pronounce complaisant in American English:
US [kəmˈplesənt, -zənt]
-
- Adjective:
- showing a cheerful willingness to do favors for others
Word Origin
- complaisant
- complaisant: [17] Complaisant and complacent [17] are virtual doublets. Both come from Latin complacēre ‘please greatly’ (a compound verb formed from placēre, source of English please), but they reached English along different routes. Complaisant came via French, from complaisant, the present participle of complaire ‘gratify’, but complacent was a direct borrowing from the Latin present participle. It originally meant simply ‘pleasant, delightful’, and did not take on its present derogatory connotations (at first expressed by the now obsolete complacential) until the mid 18th century.=> complacent, please
- complaisant (adj.)
- 1640s, from French complaisant (16c.), in Middle French, "pleasing," present participle of complaire "acquiesce to please," from Latin complacere "be very pleasing" (see complacent, with which it overlapped till mid-19c.). Possibly influenced in French by Old French plaire "gratify."
Example
- 1. He obviously thought switzerland was one of the complaisant countries in which he was safe .
- 2. Old painter is being listened attentively to seriously , complaisant to her express one 's thanks to .
- 3. So complaisant was he , moreover , that at times , when urged , he let himself be taken to hunts or the theatre or the spectacles .
- 4. Report the bearing that him attention wants when the job , accomplish a station to have station look , sit have sit , cultured and easy , complaisant .
- 5. Still have half , because his humanness is complaisant , be , imperial crown platform , anthology xiao en is known as when show - after badier most the new show that denounces stern favor .