English

please

/pliːz/
To make happy or satisfy; to give pleasure to.

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    Origin

    Etymology 1

    From Middle English plesen, plaisen, borrowed from Old French plaise, conjugated form of plaisir or plaire, from Latin placeō (“to please, to seem good”), from the Proto-Indo-European *pleHk- (“pleasingness, permission”). In this sense, displaced native Old English līcian, whence Modern English like.

    Etymology 2

    Short for if you please, an intransitive, ergative form taken from if it please you which is a calque of French s'il vous plaît, which replaced pray. If it please you is a present subjunctive form, but most current uses of please are not parsed that way.

    Etymology 3

    Semantic loan from German bitte (“please; excuse me”).

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • inheritedMiddle Englishplesen
      • derivedOld Frenchplaise
        • derivedLatinplaceō “to please, to seem good”
          • derivedProto-Indo-European*pleHk- “pleasingness, permission”
    • calqueFrenchs'il vous plaît
    • semantic loanGermanbitte “please; excuse me”

    Sources