a. Also 7 complizant, compleasant, 8 complisant. [17th c. a. F. complaisant (16th c. in Littré), pr. pple. of complaire to acquiesce in order to please:—L. complacēre to be very pleasing to: cf. COMPLACENT, COMPLEASE. In 17th c. it was sometimes assimilated in form to complease, pleasant, with stress on 2nd syllable; but a general recognition of its French nativity has preserved the Fr. spelling, with the main stress varying between the 3rd and the 1st syllable.]
1. Characterized by complaisance; disposed to please; obliging, politely agreeable, courteous. (Of persons, their actions, manners, etc.)
1647. Cowley, Mistr., Echo (1669), 40. Complaisant Nymph [Echo], who do’est thus kindly share In griefs, whose cause thou do’st not know!
1651. Charleton, Ephes. & Cimm. Matrons, (1668), 22. The most affable, compleasant, and chearfull creature in the world.
1664. Sir C. Lyttelton, in Hatton Corr. (1878), 38. Feare not you will find mee as complizant.
1671. Villiers (Dk. Buckhm.), Rehearsal (1714), 55. That’s very complaisant … Mr. Bayes, to be of another Man’s Opinion, before he knows what it is.
a. 1720. Sheffield (Dk. Buckhm.), Wks. (1753), I. 14. Cautious the young, and complaisant the old.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, II. iv. 131. The girl was complaisant enough to make the bearers stop.
1871. Smiles, Charac., ix. (1876), 242. The French … of even the humblest classes, are … complaisant, cordial, and well-bred.
b. Disposed to comply with another’s wishes; yielding, accommodating, compliant, facile.
1676. Etheredge, Man of Mode, IV. i. I am sorry my face does not please you as it is, But I shall not be complaisant and change it.
1678. Rymer, Trag. last Age, 69. Had [she] been formerly complaisant with him beyond discretion.
1839. G. P. R. James, Louis XIV., I. 246. Richelieu, not finding the clergy quite so complaisant as he could have desired.
† 2. Of things: Pleasant, agreeable. Obs. rare.
1710. T. Fuller, Pharm. Extemp., 293. An honest benign Medicine, yet its not very complaisant to the Palate.
