Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Gratify

Grat′i·fy (·fī), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Gratified (#); p. pr. & vb. n. Gratifying (#).] [F. gratifier, L. gratificari; gratus pleasing + -ficare (in comp.) to make. See -fy.] 1. To please; to give pleasure to; to satisfy; to soothe; to indulge; as, to gratify the taste, the appetite, the senses, the desires, the mind, etc.

For who would die to gratify a foe? Dryden.

2. To requite; to recompense. [Obs.]

It remains . . . To gratify his noble service. Shak.

Syn. — To indulge; humor please; delight; requite; recompense. — To Gratify, Indulge, Humor. Gratify, is the generic term, and has reference simply to the pleasure communicated. To indulge a person implies that we concede something to his wishes or his weaknesses which he could not claim, and which had better, perhaps, be spared. To humor is to adapt ourselves to the varying moods, and, perhaps, caprices, of others. We gratify a child by showing him the sights of a large city; we indulge him in some extra expense on such an occasion; we humor him when he is tired and exacting.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.