- please
- please vb Please, gratify, delight, rejoice, gladden, tickle, regale mean to make happy or to be a cause of happiiress.Please usually implies an agreement with one's wishes, tastes, or aspirations and a happiness which ranges from mere content and the absence of grounds for displeasure to actual elation{
the family was pleased with the daughter's marriage
}{the aim of poetry is to please
}{the suggestion did not please him
}{he may apply himself ... to feeding and protecting his family, but he no longer need strain to please— Edmund Wilson
}{fangless perceptions which will please the conservative power— Mailer
}Gratify (compare gratifying under PLEASANT) suggests an even stronger measure of satisfaction than please and is normally positive in its implication of pleasure{it gratifies us to imagine that ... we have reached a point on the road of progress beyond that vouchsafed to our benighted predecessors— Ellis
}{it gratified him to have his wife wear jewels; it meant some-thing to him— Cather
}{he had a sense of humor in his peculiar quiet way, but he never gratified it by proofs of the obvious— Theodore Sturgeon
}Delight stresses the emotional rather than the intellectual quality of the reaction, though the latter is often also implied; it suggests intense, lively pleasure that is not only keenly felt but usually vividly expressed in outward signs{O, flatter me; for love delights in praises— Shak.
}{the girl was embarrassed and delighted by the effusive attention that followed— Hervey
}{she was as delighted as if he had given her a Christmas present all wrapped in shining paper— Maclnnes
}Rejoice implies a happiness that exceeds bounds and reveals itself openly (as in smiles, in song, in festivities, or in enthusiastic effort){rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells— Shak.
}{Hendrik worked, rejoicing in the strength that God had given him— Cloete
}Gladden sometimes is indistinguishable from rejoice except in rarely suggesting excess of emotion and in being usually transitive{a small pleasantry frankly uttered by a patron, gladdens the heart of the dependent— Irving
}It often, however, connotes a raising of the spirits, or a cheering or consoling in depression or grief{the comrades of the dead girl assemble in the temple on certain days to gladden her spirit with songs and dances— Hearn
}Tickle and regale involve the idea of delight, but they are often less dignified in their connotations.Tickle implies such pleasurable sensations as tingles and thrills or suggests an almost physical gratification{food that tickles the palate
}Sometimes, with reference to physical tickling, it suggests provocation of laughter{the mimic court of justice in the orchard tickled him immensely— Deland
}{the idea of himself as a parson tickles him: he looks down at the black sleeve on his arm, and then smiles slyly— Shaw
}Regale connotes huge enjoyment or a feasting upon what gives pleasure{Mr. Sycamore was regaling himself with the discomfiture of Lady Charlotte— H. G. Wells
}{would always regale them generously with madeira, sherry or whiskey, rich cake, and richer stories— Chapman-Huston
}Antonyms: displease: anger: vex
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
