pleasantries

pleasantries is the plural of pleasantry.

Noun

pleasantries pl (plural only)

(literally, plural, plural-only) A short polite conversation before a serious conversation.
- exchanging pleasantries
Synonyms:

formality, amenities
(euphemistic, ironic, plural, plural-only) Bad language; profanity; swearing.
- Signora Caterina thought it could. Weak, yet cunning—vain, yet conscious of having outlived her attractions—with one of those tempers which we conceive to be the true interpretation of the old fairy tale, where out of the mouth of the party proceeded snakes, toads, locusts, and other pleasantries.1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 221

pleasantry (countable and uncountable, plural pleasantries)

(proscribed, sometimes) A casual, courteous remark.
A playful remark; a jest.
- Charlie Mulgrew could easily have been shown two yellow cards by a stricter referee and amid all the usual Anglo-Scottish pleasantries, the two sets of fans put an awful lot of effort into trying to drown out one another’s national anthems.2014 November 18, Daniel Taylor, The Guardian
(dated) Anything that promotes pleasure or merriment.
- C.O.O: "The office was quite close to the home of our youth—"
  CHRM: "Thomas, your trip to Suitopia was not meant to be for pleasantries."
  C.O.O: "No… I know… But I was close by, so I went to visit them…"
  CHRM: "You should not have. You and I both know the way they are."(Can we date this quote?), Toontown: Corporate Clash Development Team, Transcription Excerpt

What does pleasantries mean?: Pleasantries means a short polite conversation before a serious conversation.
What is pleasantries the plural of?: Pleasantries is the plural of pleasantry.
What part of speech is pleasantries?: Pleasantries is a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: pleasantries (page history and authors); pleasantry (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “pleasantries.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pleasantries. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.