if you please
if you please phrase: please.
Phrase
if you please
- Please.
- The engine-driver and fireman did not see her. They were leaning out on the other side, telling the Porter a tale about a dog and a leg of mutton.
"If you please," said Roberta--but the engine was blowing off steam and no one heard her.
"If you please, Mr. Engineer," she spoke a little louder, but...1906, Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children, Chapter 4: The engine-burglar
- The engine-driver and fireman did not see her. They were leaning out on the other side, telling the Porter a tale about a dog and a leg of mutton.
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see if, you, please.
- Say you ſo, Sir, why then you are oblig’d to me for telling your fortune beforehand; you may avoid it if you pleaſe; I have giv’n you warning.1694, Tho[mas] Southerne, The Fatal Marriage: or, The Innocent Adultery, a Play, […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, act II, scene [3], page 36
- I will, if you please, go and see him to-day. And I will ask him to call upon you to-morrow morning.1876, [Walter Besant, James Rice], chapter VIII, in The Golden Butterfly. […], volume II, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], page 133
Examples of if you please in a sentence
- “I don’t care about remarks; I don’t care what people think.” / “You don’t care if you please or displease, perhaps, but to give a joy is something; won’t you?”1899 August, Sarah Barnwell Elliott, “Fortune’s Vassals”, in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine: […], volume LXIV, number 380, Philadelphia...
- ‘My king,’ frothed Keimdal, ‘I must object!’ / ‘Object if you please.2014, Joe Abercrombie, Half a King (Shattered Sea; 1), London: HarperVoyager, →ISBN, page 55:
Forms of if you please
| alternative form (archaic) | if it you please |
|---|
Origin of if you please
The construction is unusual since the infinitive to please originally meant only “to satisfy”, not “to be satisfied”. One solution entails interpreting you as an object pronoun and please as a verb in the third-person singular subjunctive, such that if you please actually meant if it may please you. The according constructions if thee please, if him please, if them please, etc., are indeed attestable. However, if this approach is correct, the reinterpretation of the pronoun as the subject of the phrase must be very old as we also find if thou please and so on. A second hypothesis construes "if you please" as an intransitive, ergative form taken from if it pleases you which is a calque of French s'il vous plaît. Alternatively, if you please may be a bastardization of if you'd please, which is an abbreviation of if you would please be so kind, wherein please constitutes an adverb, not a verb.
Questions about if you please
- What does if you please mean?
- If you please means please.
- How do you use if you please in a sentence?
- “I don’t care about remarks; I don’t care what people think.” / “You don’t care if you please or displease, perhaps, but to give a joy is something; won’t you?”
- What part of speech is if you please?
- If you please is a phrase.
Words near if you please in the dictionary
- if you lie with dogs you will get fleas
- if you like
- if you mess with the bull, you get the horns
- if you pay bananas, you get monkeys
- if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys
- if you please
- if you say so
- if you see something, say something
- if you see what I mean
- if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything
- if you want a thing done well, do it yourself
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: if you please (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-if you please.wav.
Cite this entry: “if you please.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/if_you_please. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.