comfort

English Online Dictionary. What means comfort‎? What does comfort mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌm.fət/
• (Northern England) IPA^(key): /ˈkʊm.fət/
• (General American) enPR: kŭm'fərt, IPA^(key): /ˈkʌm.fɚt/, [ˈkʰʌɱ.fɚt]
• (obsolete) enPR: kŭmfôrt', IPA^(key): /kʌmˈfɔɹt/

Etymology 1

From Middle English comfort, from Old French cunfort, confort, from the stem of Late Latin confortō. It replaced Old English frofor, Middle English frovre.

Noun

comfort (countable and uncountable, plural comforts)

1. Contentment, ease.

   Antonym: austerity
2. Something that offers comfort.

3. A consolation; something relieving suffering or worry.

   Synonyms: liss, solace; see also Thesaurus:consolation

4. A cause of relief or satisfaction.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English comforten, from Old French conforter, from Late Latin confortō (“to strengthen greatly”), itself from Latin con- (“together”) + fortis (“strong”).

Verb

comfort (third-person singular simple present comforts, present participle comforting, simple past and past participle comforted)

1. (transitive) To relieve the distress or suffering of; to provide comfort to.

   Synonyms: besoothe, console; see also Thesaurus:comfort
2. (obsolete) To make strong; to invigorate; to fortify; to corroborate.
3. (obsolete) To assist or help; to aid.

Derived terms

• comforter
• comforting (adjective, noun)
• uncomfort

Translations

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch confoort, from Old French confort.

Pronunciation

• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /kɔmˈfɔːr/
• (Belgium) IPA^(key): /kɔmˈfɔr(t)/
• Hyphenation: com‧fort

Noun

comfort n (plural comforts, diminutive comfortje n)

1. physical comfort, ease

Derived terms

• comfortabel
• ligcomfort
• rijcomfort
• zitcomfort

Middle English

Alternative forms

• cumfort, confort, counfort

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French cunfort, confort.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kumˈfɔrt/, /kunˈfɔrt/

Noun

comfort (plural comforts)

1. encouragement, assurance

Descendants

• English: comfort
• Yola: comfoort

References

• “cǒmfort, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.