Word.ws English Dictionary

delight

/dəˈlaɪt/

delight noun: joy; pleasure.

Noun

delight (countable and uncountable, plural delights)

  1. Joy; pleasure.
    • A fool hath no delight in understanding.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 18:2
    • […] the isle is full of noises,
      Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
  2. Something that gives great joy or pleasure.
    • Greensleeves was all my joy / Greensleeves was my delight, […]1580, Greensleeves
    • […] Awake
      My fairest, my espous’d, my latest found,
      Heav’ns last best gift, my ever new delight,1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...

Verb

delight (third-person singular simple present delights, present participle delighting, simple past and past participle delighted)

  1. To give delight to; to affect with great pleasure; to please highly.
    • Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds.1842, Tennyson, Le Morte d’Arthur
    • A beautiful landscape delights the eye.
  2. (intransitive) To have or take great pleasure.
    • A ſclaunderous tunge, a tunge of a ſkolde,
      Worketh more miſchiefe than can be tolde;
      That, if I wiſt not to be controlde,
      Yet ſomwhat to ſay I dare well be bolde,c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.
    • For I have loved you well and long, / Delighting in your company.1580, Greensleeves
    Synonyms:
    blithen, happy

Proper noun capitalized: Delight

Delight

  1. A town in Pike County, Arkansas.
  2. A township in Custer County, Nebraska.

delight meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

delight in Hindi

joy, pleasure
हर्ष harṣ, आनंद ānand, सुख sukh, प्रसन्नता prasannatā, आह्लाद āhlād, ख़ुशी xuśī

delight in Tamil

மகிழ்ச்சி, ஆனந்தம், பேரின்பம்

delight in Urdu

joy, pleasure
خوش xuś

delight in Bengali

joy, pleasure
আমোদ amōd
More languagesFewer languages
delight in Telugu
ముదము mudamu, అంగవించు aṅgaviñcu, జోక jōka
delight in Malayalam
ഏറെ സന്തോഷം
delight in Kannada
ಸೊಗಸು, ನಲಿವು, ಒಚ್ಚತ, ಒಚ್ಚಿತ
delight in Gujarati
ઉમંગ umaṅg
delight in Odia
ଖୁସି khusi
delight in Sanskrit
सुख sukha, चनस् canas, रणति raṇati, प्रीणाति prīṇāti
delight in Tagalog
kasiyahan, galak, tuwa, ligaya
delight in Arabic
فُرْجَة furja
delight in Persian
خرسندی xorsandi
delight in Thai
สุข sùk
delight in Vietnamese
niềm vui

Examples of delight in a sentence

  • Gay as a flutter of butterflies and light as a zephyr, these dainty fabrics instantly suggest a wardrobe of sheer delight.1901, Country Life, volume 40, number July, page 2:
  • For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away.2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52:
  • He was an eisteddfodwr and delighted to hear good singing, whether it was in the sanctuary or at the eisteddfodic gatherings.1908, T.J. Griffths, The Cambrian, volume 28, page 504:

All 40 example sentences with delight

Synonyms of delight

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of delight

Forms of delight

Noun
pluraldelights
Verb
third-person singular presentdelights
present participledelighting
past participledelighted
pastdelighted

Past tense of delight: delighted

Plural of delight: delights

Origin of delight

Attested from the 13th century, from Middle English delite, from Old French deleiter, deliter, from Latin dēlectāre (“to delight, please”), frequentative of dēlicere (“to allure, entice”), from dē- (“away”) + laciō (“to lure, to deceive”), from Proto-Italic *lakjō (“to draw, pull”), of unknown ultimate origin. Doublet of delect. Related with delectation, delicate, delicious and dilettante. The modern unetymological spelling (instead of expected delite) is influenced by light and other words ending in -ight, such as might, bright, etc. The -gh- may also be an attempt to represent the Latin -c-; compare obsolete indight for indict.

Words formed from delight

Phrases with delight

Words that rhyme with delight

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about delight

What does delight mean?
Delight means joy; pleasure.
What is delight in Hindi?
Delight in Hindi is हर्ष (harṣ), आनंद (ānand), सुख (sukh). See Delight meaning in Hindi.
How do you use delight in a sentence?
Gay as a flutter of butterflies and light as a zephyr, these dainty fabrics instantly suggest a wardrobe of sheer delight.
What part of speech is delight?
Delight can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce delight?
Delight is pronounced /dəˈlaɪt/.
What is the plural of delight?
The plural of delight is delights.

Words near delight in the dictionary

  1. deligated
  2. deligating
  3. deligation
  4. deligations
  5. deligent
  6. delight
  7. delight in
  8. delightable
  9. delighte
  10. delighted
  11. delighted in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: delight (page history and authors); Delight (page history and authors); delight (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); అంగవించు (Telugu) (page history and authors); delight (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); delight (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ઉમંગ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ଖୁସି (Odia) (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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Cite this entry: “delight.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/delight. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.