gratification

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin grātificātiō (“obligingness, complaisance”), taken directly or through French gratification,^[2][3][4][5] a noun of action from the past participle of grātificor (“to please, oblige, do a favour”),^[3][6][2] the source of gratify.^[3][2] The Latin verb is formed from grātus (“pleasing”) and faciō (“to make, do”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Something given as a reward or recompense, or to win favour: 1576, in the council register of Aberdeen.^[2][5] Etymonline and Dictionary.com date the word to the 1590s.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

The early senses were all about giving: a reward or gratuity, sometimes a bribe (1576), the doing of a favour (1598, in Florio), and for a time an expression of pleasure or congratulation (before 1597–1620) and thanksgiving.^[2] From 1669 it meant the satisfying of a feeling or desire, and in Steele's Spectator essays of 1711 and 1712 it came to mean a thing that pleases and then the state of being pleased, now the main sense.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the act of pleasing" and "pleasure; delight".^[8] The sense "reward, tip" survived in Scots, as in Scott's Fortunes of Nigel (1822),^[9] and in military use for a payment to soldiers (1802).^[2]

Timeline

• 1576 – a reward, recompense or gratuity; also a bribe.^[2][5]
• before 1597 – an expression of pleasure, congratulation (obsolete by 1620).^[2]
• 1598 – the giving of pleasure, the doing of a favour.^[2]
• 1669 – the satisfying or indulging of a desire.^[2]
• 1711 – a thing that gratifies, a source of pleasure.^[2]
• 1712 – the state of being gratified, enjoyment.^[2][3]
• 1802 – in the army, a payment given as a gratuity.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Pleasure or satisfaction, especially from having a wish fulfilled: the gratification of seeing her plan succeed.^[10][11][2]
2. The act of gratifying a desire or need: the gratification of their appetites.^[10][11][2]
3. Something that pleases or satisfies.^[10][11][5]
4. (archaic) A reward or gratuity.^[5][11][2]

Word family

• overgratification
• self-gratification

Related words

• gratify
• grateful
• gratitude
• gratuity
• grace

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
10. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins