Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Offensive to the mind or any of the senses; disagreeable.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Causing displeasure or dissatisfaction; offensive; disagreeable.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Unattractive, dislikable, objectionable.
  • verb Present participle of displease.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective causing displeasure or lacking pleasing qualities

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Perhaps a calque of Old French desplaisant, from the verb desplere ("to displease").

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Examples

  • The fact that you might find this aesthetically displeasing is no kind of evidence for the idea that markets actually are the magic solution you seek.

    Matthew Yglesias » The Wage Stagnation Debate 2010

  • I would not like to be the man that spoke a word displeasing to ye with those eyes of yours.

    Kirsteen: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago Margaret 1891

  • When one of these has a little cunning, he passes his time in the utmost satisfaction to himself and his friends; for his position is never to report or speak a displeasing thing to his friend.

    The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II Various 1887

  • What deterred her was not so much the idea of displeasing her lover, who would have looked upon such a journey as bad form, as the vague fear of awakening the slumbering shadow.

    A Mummer's Tale Anatole France 1884

  • For though one should speak ten thousand words well, if there happen to be one little word displeasing to you, because not sufficiently intelligible or accurate, you make no account of the many good words, but lay hold of the little word, and are very zealous in setting it up as something impious and guilty; in order that, when you are judged with the very same judgment by God, you may have a much heavier account to render for your great audacities, whether evil actions, or bad interpretations which you obtain by falsifying the truth.

    ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus 1819-1893 2001

  • Boyle is famous now not because she has an incredible singing voice - which, let's face it, she hasn't; she has a good singing voice and that rare but not unknown talent of possessing perfect pitch - but because she is aesthetically "displeasing" (she is over 25, doesn't appear to have great knowledge of personal grooming and looks much older than her real age - 47).

    Irish Blogs 2009

  • Boyle is famous now not because she has an incredible singing voice - which, let's face it, she hasn't; she has a good singing voice and that rare but not unknown talent of possessing perfect pitch - but because she is aesthetically "displeasing" (she is over 25, doesn't appear to have great knowledge of personal grooming and looks much older than her real age - 47).

    Irish Blogs 2009

  • According to The tenants of Shinto, all White animals are sacred Kami spirits that you mess with at the peril of displeasing the Gods.

    Would You Keep an Albino Gamefish? 2009

  • According to The tenants of Shinto, all White animals are sacred Kami spirits that you mess with at the peril of displeasing the Gods.

    Would You Keep an Albino Gamefish? 2009

  • ARs aren't functionally better than other semi-autos, they are more expensive generally, aesthetically displeasing to some of us, and they're generally less well built and less accurate.

    Is Your Next Deer Rifle An AR? 2009

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