please.
To make happy or satisfy; to give pleasure to.
Meaning & usage
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.
Where this word comes from
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.
Used to make a polite request.
Please, pass the bread.
Would you please sign this form?
Where this word comes from
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 as an affirmative to an offer.
May I help you? —(Yes,) please.
D'you mind if I open the window? —Please do.
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.
An expression of annoyance, impatience, or exasperation.
Please with that damn harmonica!
Please with all the ads, I just want to watch the movie.
Where this word comes from
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.
Said as a request to repeat information.
Customer while ordering: Can I get a [unintelligible]? Restaurant employee: Please?
Where this word comes from
Semantic loan from German bitte (“please; excuse me”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.