Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To please or satisfy: synonym: please.
- transitive verb To give in to (a desire); indulge.
- transitive verb Archaic To reward.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To please; give pleasure to; delight; satisfy; indulge.
- To requite or reward voluntarily; also, to give a gratuity to.
- Synonyms Gratify, Indulge, Humor. To gratify is a more positive act than to indulge or to humor. Gratify is most often used in a good sense; indulge, most often in a bad one. Humor expresses an easy or good-natured compliance or management, ordinarily neither weak nor evil: as, to
humor a person's eccentricities.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To please; to give pleasure to; to satisfy; to soothe; to indulge
- transitive verb obsolete To requite; to recompense.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
please . - verb To make
content , tosatisfy .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb make happy or satisfied
- verb yield (to); give satisfaction to
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Hence an important means towards happiness is the control of our desires, and the extinction of those that we cannot gratify, which is brought about by virtue.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI 1840-1916 1913
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And my husband will be happy in the enjoyment of every expensive taste which a poor man call gratify, for the first time in his life.
Little Novels Wilkie Collins 1856
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(26 May) was thought a fitting opportunity for asking for a further loan of £100,000 to enable her majesty to pay and "gratify" the seamen who had so gallantly warded off invasion and to refit the fleet.
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Their victory over difficulties affords the most rational cause of triumph, and the attainment of new ideas leads to incalculable riches, such as gratify the glorious avarice of aspiring and comprehensive minds.
The Borough George Crabbe 1793
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Their victory over difficulties affords the most rational cause of triumph, and the attainment of new ideas leads to incalculable riches, such as gratify the glorious avarice of aspiring and comprehensive minds.
The Borough George Crabbe 1793
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Their victory over difficulties affords the most rational cause of triumph, and the attainment of new ideas leads to incalculable riches, such as gratify the glorious avarice of aspiring and comprehensive minds.
The Borough George Crabbe 1793
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Such a mission, he believed, would not only advance the cause of science but enhance American prestige, polish the Navy's image and "gratify the whole Christian world" not to mention impel his own becalmed career.
Old Salt, Dead Sea Gerard Helferich 2011
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Mavis is the classic narcissist: cut off from objective reality, lacking any concern for other people, insecure in private but willing in public to ride roughshod over anyone and everything in order to gratify her whims.
Govindini Murty: Charlize Theron's Young Adult and the Crisis of Narcissism in Our Popular Culture Govindini Murty 2011
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Another mother described herself as 'constantly upset', but making a Herculean effort to gratify her year 14-year-old daughter anyway.
Susan Shapiro Barash: Our Daughters at Holiday Time Susan Shapiro Barash 2011
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Being offered several times, refusing politely, then at last "Maybe just one, they look soooo good!" was supposed to gratify the hostess into thinking that she really was such a good cook, she'd managed to overcome the ladylike appetite ( "I only exist on air") of the visitor, and the visitor maintains her rep for not being greedy.
mrissa: It gets early early here, too. mrissa 2010
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