Displeases

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To cause a feeling of dissatisfaction or annoyance in someone
2. Provokes displeasure or causes someone to feel unhappy or displeased
3. Creates a sense of irritation or discontent in a person

Etymology: "Displeases" is simply the third-person singular present form of "displease", so its story is really the story of the verb. "Displease" is built from the prefix dis- ("apart", "opposite of") and "please". The base "please" came into English through Old French "plaisir" from Latin "placere" ("to please"), and the Old French verb "desplere" took the opposite sense, "to be unpleasing". That verb passed into Anglo-Norman as "despleisir" or "desplere", and Middle English adopted it as "displesen", which later became "displease" in modern English. The result is a neat piece of word-building: English took a Romance word meaning "to please" and simply reversed it with a prefix that was already in use on many other verbs. Because "displease" ends in a plain -s in the present tense, "displeases" follows the regular pattern used for nearly every English verb. The meaning, a state of irritation or discontent, follows directly from "not pleasing" to "causing displeasure".

Synonyms: offends, irritates

Antonyms: pleases, delights