dissatisfied

UK/dɪsˈsætɪsˌfaɪd/US/dɪsˈsætɪsˌfaɪd/

adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,508 of 15,258leans written

Dissatisfied means not content with what you have been given. It fell short, and you are saying so.

It takes with. The word is more formal and more measured than unhappy, which is why complaints and surveys use it: dissatisfied customers, dissatisfied with the response. It implies a specific shortfall rather than general misery. Its opposite, satisfied, means merely content rather than delighted, so the pair sit closer together than they look. The noun is dissatisfaction, and it usually appears as expressing dissatisfaction.

Definitions of dissatisfied

1adjectivedissatisfiedNot content because expectations were not met.B2+
“Customers were dissatisfied with the explanation.”

Where it comes from

Middle English
satisfyed
English
satisfied
English, today
dissatisfied

From dis- + satisfied. satisfied comes from Middle English satisfyed, from satisfien. From Middle English satisfyed, i-satisfyed, i-satisfied, past participle of Middle English satisfien, equivalent to satisfy + -ed.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 6 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

dissatisfied in the wild

SF was principally dissatisfied with the pro-NATO/European Economic Community external policies of DNA.
Socialist People's Party (Norway)
The episode was originally produced for season two, but was postponed because Larry David was dissatisfied with the episode; it was therefore advertised as a "lost" episode.
The Stranded (Seinfeld)
Brutus, dissatisfied with Cicero's work, wrote a second pamphlet in praise of Cato and called, simply, "Cato", which provoked a reply from Octavian.
Anticato
When Munekage arranged an alliance with the Mori clan, Naoie was dissatisfied with the decision and launched a rebellion against Munekage.
Uragami Munekage

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.

Related words

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