gratify
/ˈɡratɪfʌɪ
/verb (gratifies, gratifying, gratified) [with object]
1Give (someone) pleasure or satisfaction: she was gratified to see the shock in Jim’s eyes (as adjective gratifying) the results were gratifying...
- With this in mind, I am most gratified with the test results and would guess that someone with younger eyes could do even better.
- Thus far, we are extremely gratified by the results, but the road has not been easy.
- Because we use the same verb to characterize what pleases and what gratifies us, we are inclined to expect, erroneously, that the liking comes from the same source.
Synonyms
please, gladden, give pleasure to, make happy, make content, delight, make someone feel good, satisfy, warm the cockles of the heart, thrill
informal tickle someone pink, give someone a buzz/kick, buck someone up
1.1Indulge or satisfy (a desire): not all the sexual impulses can be gratified...
- Looking at the evolutionary history of four everyday domesticated plants (apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes), he argues that their success stems from their ability to gratify human desires.
- Anyone who abuses young girls in order to gratify their sexual desires can and must expect custodial sentences to mark the public abhorrence of this type of behaviour.
- Under colonialism, a nation is a ground on which men may gratify their desires for control and honor.
Synonyms
satisfy, fulfil, indulge, relieve, humour, comply with, pander to, cater to, give in to, quench, slake, satiate, pacify, appease, assuage, provide for, feed, accommodate
Derivatives
gratifier
- Simplifying, downshifters sacrifice money for time, deferrers sacrifice time for money, and gratifiers sacrifice money later for money now.
- Secondly, agreement on many matters is a relatively cheap gratifier.
- The need gratifier can be anyone - father, mother, aunt, uncle, brother, sister.
gratifyingly
/ adverb ...- You look so well, they all cooed, gratifyingly unaware of just how dog-rough I was feeling on the inside.
- But, as Thomas gratifyingly points out, newspapers are too dependent on revenue from movie-industry advertising to publish too many honest considerations of film.
- And, gratifyingly for the school, staff were missed too.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'make pleasing'): from French gratifier or Latin gratificari 'give or do as a favour', from gratus 'pleasing, thankful'.