Meaning & use
pleasure
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Meanings
noununcountable
A feeling of happiness or enjoyment that comes from something you like.
Grammar: Used without 'a' or a plural when talking about the feeling in general: She smiled with pleasure.
Patterns
- take pleasure in something
- get pleasure from something
- with pleasure
He gets a lot of pleasure from cooking for his friends.
She took great pleasure in watching the children open their gifts.
Reading by the window gave him quiet pleasure on rainy afternoons.
nouncountable
Something that gives you enjoyment or makes you happy.
Grammar: Countable here, so it can be plural: one of life's pleasures.
Patterns
- one of life's pleasures
- the pleasures of something
- a real pleasure
Walking in these hills is one of the great pleasures of living here.
The book describes the small pleasures of everyday family life.
Meeting your old teacher again was a real pleasure.
nounsingularformal
A polite way of saying you are happy to do something or that you enjoyed something.
Grammar: Fixed polite formulas, often as a short reply: It's a pleasure. / My pleasure.
Patterns
- It's a pleasure to do something
- My pleasure
- with pleasure
"Thanks for the lift." "My pleasure."
It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Dr. Ramos.
"Could you help me with this form?" "With pleasure."
Word forms
| plural | pleasures |
|---|
Common combinations
- take pleasure in something
- She takes real pleasure in teaching beginners.
- great pleasure
- It gives me great pleasure to introduce tonight's speaker.
- a pleasure to meet you
- It's a pleasure to meet you after all these emails.
- guilty pleasure
- Watching reality TV is my guilty pleasure.
- with pleasure
- He agreed with pleasure to show us around.
Synonyms and how they differ
- enjoyment
- Very close in meaning, but enjoyment often stresses the activity itself, while pleasure stresses the pleasant feeling.
- delight
- Stronger and more literary than pleasure; it suggests lively, visible happiness.
- satisfaction
- Suggests contentment because something was done well, not simply because it felt good.
Opposites
Word family
- pleasurable adjective
- Giving enjoyment; a formal word for an experience that feels good.
- pleased adjective
- Happy about something; describes a person's reaction, not the activity.
- pleasing adjective
- Nice to look at or experience; describes a thing or result.
- pleasantly adverb
- In a way that is enjoyable or agreeable.
Commonly confused: pleasure or pleasurable?
pleasure vs pleasurable
Pleasure is a noun, so you say 'a feeling of pleasure' or 'take pleasure in'; pleasurable is the adjective used before a noun, as in 'a pleasurable evening'.
Practice
Which sentence uses pleasure correctly?
Choose one answer.
The fixed phrase is 'take pleasure in something', and the feeling is uncountable here, so no 'a' or plural is used. 'For' is the wrong preposition, and 'pleasures' would mean particular enjoyable things, which does not fit.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “pleasure”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.