displeasure

UK/dɪsˈplɛʒə/US/dɪsˈplɛʒɚ/

nounB2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,663 of 15,258leans writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Displeasure is a feeling of annoyance and disapproval. Anger, expressed with restraint.

The word is formal and it implies rank, since displeasure is usually felt by somebody with the standing to express it, which is why royal displeasure is a phrase and nobody records their neighbour's. It appears in expressing displeasure and incurring somebody's displeasure. What distinguishes it from anger is the control, since displeasure is shown rather than lost. The verb displease and the adjective displeased belong with it.

Definitions of displeasure

1noundispleasureAnnoyance and disapproval, expressed with restraint.B2
“The committee made its displeasure very clear.”

Where it comes from

Old French
desplaisir
English, today
displeasure

From Old French desplaisir, equivalent to dis- + pleasure. See displease.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 15 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

displeasure in the wild

Kometani is also noted for her expressed displeasure of what she terms the fascist mentality of the World War II Japanese Army.
Fumiko Kometani
Upon his arrival in Washington, he fell in displeasure with George Preston Marshall of the Redskins.
1954 Washington Redskins season
Positive affective stimuli trigger feelings of pleasure such as happiness; negative affective stimuli trigger feelings of displeasure such as disgust and fear.
Emotional responsivity
Valence describes the degree to which the feeling is a pleasure or displeasure.
Emotional responsivity
Do frith links the disunity among Irish, which led to their defeat in the Irish Confederate Wars, with God's displeasure.
Donnchadh Mac an Caoilfhiaclaigh

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

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