delight

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

English

Etymology

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 (“I lure, I 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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dəˈlaɪt/, /dɪˈlaɪt/
• Rhymes: -aɪt

Noun

delight (countable and uncountable, plural delights)

1. Joy; pleasure.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:delight.
2. Something that gives great joy or pleasure.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:delight.

Derived terms

Translations

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.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:delight.

2. (intransitive) To have or take great pleasure.
   • c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.:

     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,
     How ſome delite for to lye, thycke and threfolde.

Derived terms

Related terms

• delicacy
• delicate
• delicatessen
• delicious

Translations

Further reading

• “delight”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “delight”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• gildeth, glideth, lighted