| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| ease |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |   z |
| NOUN: | 1. The condition of being comfortable or relieved. 2a. Freedom from pain, worry, or agitation: Her mind was at ease knowing that the children were safe. b. Freedom from constraint or embarrassment; naturalness. 3a. Freedom from difficulty, hardship, or effort: rose through the ranks with apparent ease. b. Readiness or dexterity in performance; facility: a pianist who played the sonata with ease. 4. Freedom from financial difficulty; affluence: a life of luxury and ease. 5. A state of rest, relaxation, or leisure: He took his ease by the pond. | | VERB: | Inflected forms: eased, eas·ing, eas·es
| | TRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To free from pain, worry, or agitation: eased his conscience by returning the stolen money. 2a. To lessen the discomfort or pain of: shifted position to ease her back. b. To alleviate; assuage: prescribed a drug to ease the pain. 3. To give respite from: eased the staff's burden by hiring more people. 4. To slacken the strain, pressure, or tension of; loosen: ease off a cable. 5. To reduce the difficulty or trouble of: eased the entrance requirements. 6. To move or maneuver slowly and carefully: eased the car into a narrow space; eased the director out of office. | | INTRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To lessen, as in discomfort, pressure, or stress: pain that never eased. 2. To move or proceed with little effort: eased through life doing as little as possible. | | IDIOM: | at ease 1. In a relaxed position, especially standing silently at rest with the right foot stationary: put the soldiers at ease while waiting for inspection. 2. Used as a command for troops to assume a relaxed position. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English ese, from Old French aise, elbowroom, physical comfort, from Vulgar Latin *asium.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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