What does "displease" mean?

To make not pleased; to cause a feeling of disapprobation or dislike in; to be disagreeable to; to vex slightly.

What is a synonym for "displease"?

Common synonyms include: anger, annoy, be disagreeable, bug, chafe, disappoint.

Displease

//dɪsˈpliːz// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1
To make not pleased; to cause a feeling of disapprobation or dislike in; to be disagreeable to; to vex slightly. transitive
"The boy's rudeness displeased me."
2
give displeasure to wordnet
3
To give displeasure or offense. intransitive
4
To fail to satisfy; to miss of. obsolete, transitive
"I shall displease my ends else."

Synonyms

All synonyms

anger annoy be disagreeable bug chafe disappoint

Antonyms

All antonyms

please

Example

More examples

"If she displease the eyes of her master to whom she was delivered, he shall let her go: but he shall have no power to sell her to a foreign nation, if he despise her."

Etymology

English dis- + please, from Middle English displesen, from Anglo-Norman despleisir, desplere, from Old French desplere (des- + plere).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.