please
interjection
- used to make a polite request
- Used as an affirmative to an offer
adverb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L333747 on Wikidata ↗verb
- to make happy, contented, satisfied
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /pliːz/ / /pliz/
adv
Etymology: Short for if you please, an intransitive, ergative form taken from if it please you which is a calque of French s'il vous plaît, which replaced pray. If it please you is a present subjunctive form, but most current uses of please are not parsed that way.
- Used to make a polite request.
“Please, pass the bread.”
“Would you please sign this form?”
intj
Etymology: Semantic loan from German bitte (“please; excuse me”).
- Said as a request to repeat information.
“Customer while ordering: Can I get a [unintelligible]? Restaurant employee: Please?”
“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?”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English plesen, plaisen, borrowed from Old French plaise, conjugated form of plaisir or plaire, from Latin placeō (“to please, to seem good”), from the Proto-Indo-European *pleHk- (“pleasingness, permission”). In this sense, displaced native Old English līcian, whence Modern English like.
- To make happy or satisfy; to give pleasure to.
“Her presentation pleased the executives.”
“I'm pleased to see you've been behaving yourself.”
- To desire; to will; to be pleased by.
“Just do as you please.”
“He doesn't think, he just says whatever he pleases.”