Word.ws English Dictionary

ease

/iːz//iz/

ease noun: lack of difficulty; the ability to do something easily.

Noun

ease (usually uncountable, plural eases)

  1. (usually) Lack of difficulty; the ability to do something easily.
    • He played the ukelele with ease.
    • The ease of lifting the weight, despite lack of skill, came from her pure strength.
    Antonyms:
    difficulty
  2. (usually) Freedom from pain, hardship, and annoyance, sometimes (derogatory, archaic) idleness, sloth.
    • She enjoyed the ease of living in a house where the servants did all the work.
  3. (usually) Freedom from worry and concern; peace; sometimes (derogatory, archaic) indifference.
    • The pension set her mind at ease.
    • There is ease in the soul of Slid and there be calms upon the sea; also, there be storms upon the sea and troubles in the soul of Slid, for the gods have many moods.1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 16
  4. (usually) Freedom from effort; leisure, rest.
    • We took our ease on the patio.
  5. (usually) Freedom from financial effort or worry; affluence.
    • His inheritance catapulted him into a life of ease.
  6. (usually) Freedom from embarrassment or awkwardness; grace.
    • She dealt with the faculty with combined authority and ease.
  7. (usually) Followed by of or from: release from or reduction of pain, hardship, or annoyance.
    • Take one pill every 12 hours to provide ease from pain.
  8. (euphemistic, obsolete, usually) Release from intestinal discomfort: defecation.
  9. (usually) Release from constraint, obligation, or a constrained position.
    • At ease, soldier!
  10. (usually) Additional space provided to allow greater movement.
    • Add some ease to the waist measurement.
  11. (obsolete, usually) A convenience; a luxury.
    Synonyms:
    amenity
  12. (obsolete, usually) A relief; an easement.

Verb

ease (third-person singular simple present eases, present participle easing, simple past and past participle eased)

  1. (transitive) To free (something) from pain, worry, agitation, etc.
    • He eased his conscience by confessing.
    • And ſure, although it was invented to eaſe his mynde of griefe, there be a number of caveats therein to forewarne other young gentlemen to foreſtand with good government their folowing yl fortunes; […]1576, George Whetstone, “The Ortchard of Repentance: […]”, in The Rocke of Regard, […], London: […] [H. Middleton] for Robert Waley, →OCLC; republished in J[ohn] P[ayne] Collier, editor, The Rocke of...
    Synonyms:
    assuage, salve
  2. (transitive) To alleviate, assuage or lessen (pain).
    • Sunny / Yesterday my life was filled with rain / Sunny / You smiled at me and really eased the pain1976, Boney M., “Sunny”, in Take the Heat off Me
  3. (transitive) To give respite to (someone).
    • The provision of extra staff eased their workload.
    • An extra rush-hour train has eased overcrowding of the former 5.39 p.m. to Salisbury; this now leaves at 5.43 and an additional electric service to Alton departs at 5.39 p.m.1961 October, “The winter timetables of British Railways: Southern Region”, in Trains Illustrated, pages 593–594
  4. (transitive) To loosen or slacken the tension on a line.
    • We eased the boom vang, then lowered the sail.
    Synonyms:
    loosen, relax, slacken
  5. (transitive) To reduce the difficulty of (something).
    • We had to ease the entry requirements.
    • I want to thank you all for easing my coming out.1974 April 6, 'Paul', “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, page 8
    Synonyms:
    facilitate, simplify
  6. (transitive) To move (something) slowly and carefully.
    • He eased the cork from the bottle.
    • Ease down off boulders; a jump may jar or sprain.1915 April, Enos A. Mills, “Going to the Top”, in The Rocky Mountain Wonderland, Houghton Mifflin, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 18
    Antonyms:
    maneuver
  7. (intransitive) To lessen in intensity.
    • The pain eased overnight.
  8. (intransitive) To proceed with little effort.
    • The car eased onto the motorway.
    Synonyms:
    cruise
  9. To reduce speed.
    • But from Northallerton No. 46143 reached 65½ m.p.h. by Otterington, 73 by Thirsk, 79½ by Pilmoor, and 82½ by Alne and was still accelerating when it was decided on the footplate that the train was getting too much ahead of time—and no wonder, with 40 min. allowed for the level 30.0 miles from...1958 December, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 852
    • "There's no other traffic on this line. We are 20 minutes ahead of time, so I'm easing back," says Waddicor as he approaches the crossing of HS2.2025 August 20, Paul Clifton, “A driver's eye view of East West Rail”, in RAIL, number 1042, page 33
  10. (archaic, slang, transitive) To take something from (a person), especially by robbery.
    • Coming up to the thief they eased him of his late acquisitions, which Redmond, restoring to the right owner, bound him over to prosecute the robber at the next assizes.1865, The Dublin University Magazine, volume 66, page 158
    • So I tucked my violin under my arm, and sallied out after the old budgy ragman, determined to ease him of his load at the very first lonesome corner I could track him to.1876, The Shamrock, volume 14

ease meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

ease in Hindi

ability — see also ability
सरलता saraltā, सहजता sahajtā

ease in Tamil

ease, facility
எளிமை eḷimai

ease in Urdu

ease, simplicity, convenience
آسانی āsānī
ease, convenience
سہولت suhūlat
ease
کل kal

ease in Bengali

ease; comfort; luxury
আয়েশ aẏeś
ease; comfort
আরাম aram
More languagesFewer languages
ease in Telugu
అవలీల avalīla, లీల līla
ease in Malayalam
ലേസ് lēsŭ
ease in Kannada
ತೊಂದರೆ ಇಲ್ಲದಿರುವುದು, ಕಷ್ಟವಿಲ್ಲದಿರುವುದು, ನೋವಿಲ್ಲದಿರುವುದು, ಅನಾಯಾಸವಾದದ್ದು
ease in Sanskrit
सुख sukhá

Examples of ease in a sentence

  • Her young boy lifted a weight with ease too, as that one wasn't too heavy
  • The ease with which she passed all the exams surprised her.

All 40 example sentences with ease

Synonyms of ease

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of ease

Forms of ease

Noun
pluraleases
Verb
third-person singular presenteases
present participleeasing
past participleeased
pasteased

Past tense of ease: eased

Plural of ease: eases

Origin of ease

From Middle English ese, eise, aise, from Anglo-Norman ese (“ease”), from Old French eise, aise (“elbow room; opportunity”), of uncertain and obscure origin. Apparently related to Provençal ais, Italian agio and asio, Sicilian aciu and Portuguese azo. Sometimes ascribed to Vulgar Latin *āsia or *āsium, possibly from Latin ānsa (“handle, haft”) or Frankish *ansiju (“handle, loophole, eyelet; cup-handle; arms akimbo, elbow room”), but more often derived from Vulgar Latin *adjace(m), from Latin adjacēns (“adjacent, neighbouring”), present participle of adjaceō (“lie next to, border on”), though the forms and senses are difficult to trace clearly. Alternatively, possibly from a non-Latin source such as Germanic or Celtic on the basis of the conflicting forms which appear in various Romance languages. Compare Old English īeþe (“easy”), Gothic 𐌰𐌶𐌴𐍄𐌹 (azēti, “ease; pleasure”), *𐌰𐌶𐌴𐍄𐍃 (*azēts, “easy”), Breton eaz, ez (“easy”), Irish adhais (“easy; leisure”). See also eath. The verb is from Middle English esen, ultimately of the same origin.

Words formed from ease

Phrases with ease

5 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with ease

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about ease

What does ease mean?
Ease means lack of difficulty; the ability to do something easily.
What is ease in Hindi?
Ease in Hindi is सरलता (saraltā), सहजता (sahajtā). See Ease meaning in Hindi.
How do you use ease in a sentence?
Her young boy lifted a weight with ease too, as that one wasn't too heavy
What part of speech is ease?
Ease can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce ease?
Ease is pronounced /iːz/ (UK).
What is the plural of ease?
The plural of ease is eases.

Words near ease in the dictionary

  1. earywig
  2. earywigs
  3. eas
  4. EASA
  5. Easdale
  6. ease
  7. ease down
  8. ease nature
  9. ease of doing business index
  10. ease of doing business indexes
  11. ease off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ease (page history and authors); எளிமை (Tamil) (page history and authors); آسانی (Urdu) (page history and authors); আয়েশ (Bengali) (page history and authors); అవలీల (Telugu) (page history and authors); ലേസ് (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ease (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); सुख (Sanskrit) (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: “ease.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ease. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.