complaisance
complaisance noun: the quality of being complaisant, amiable or agreeable.
Noun
complaisance (countable and uncountable, plural complaisances)
- The quality of being complaisant, amiable or agreeable.
- I see he has premeditated a Denial by the Complaisance of his Features.1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, V.i
- It is no wonder that in an age when this kind of merit is so little in fashion, and so slenderly provided for, persons possessed of it should very eagerly flock to a place where they were sure of being received with great complaisance; indeed, where they might enjoy almost the same advantages of a...1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Forms of complaisance
| plural | complaisances |
|---|---|
| alternative form | complaisaunce |
Origin of complaisance
From French. See complaisant. By surface analysis, com- + plaisance.
Questions about complaisance
- What does complaisance mean?
- Complaisance means the quality of being complaisant, amiable or agreeable.
- What part of speech is complaisance?
- Complaisance is a noun.
- What is the plural of complaisance?
- The plural of complaisance is complaisances.
Words near complaisance in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: complaisance (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-complaisance.wav.
Cite this entry: “complaisance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/complaisance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.