easy

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See also: Easy

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English esy, eesy, partly from Middle English ese (“ease”) + -y, equivalent to ease +‎ -y, and partly from Anglo-Norman eisé from Old French aisié (“eased, at ease, at leisure”), past participle of aisier (“to put at ease”), from aise (“empty space, elbow room, opportunity”), of uncertain origin. See ease. Merged with Middle English ethe, eathe (“easy”), from Old English īeþe, from Proto-Germanic *auþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éwtus (“empty, lonely”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew-. Compare also Old Saxon ōþi, Old High German ōdi, Old Norse auðr, all meaning "easy, vacant, empty." More at ease, eath.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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easy (comparative easier or more easy, superlative easiest or most easy)

  1. (now rare except in certain expressions) Comfortable; at ease.
    Now that I know it's taken care of, I can rest easy at night.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      “ […] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”
  2. Requiring little skill or effort.
    It's often easy to wake up but hard to get up.
    The teacher gave an easy test to her students.
    • 1963, American Society of Travel Agents, ASTA Travel News, volume 32, page 55:
      Now the easiest sell in traveldom is made even easier.
    • 1995, Margaret Guenther, Toward Holy Ground, page 43:
      I realized this all too well when as a seminarian I got stuck with the job of recruiting the washees for a Maundy Thursday service. It's much easier to be the one down on the floor with the basin […]
    • 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
      As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.
    • 2015 October 27, Matt Preston, The Simple Secrets to Cooking Everything Better‎[1], Plum, →ISBN, page 192:
      You could just use ordinary shop-bought kecap manis to marinade the meat, but making your own is easy, has a far more elegant fragrance and is, above all, such a great brag! Flavouring kecap manis is an intensely personal thing, so try this version now and next time cook the sauce down with crushed, split lemongrass and a shredded lime leaf.
  3. Causing ease; giving comfort, or freedom from care or labour.
    Rich people live in easy circumstances.
    an easy chair
  4. Free from constraint, harshness, or formality; unconstrained; smooth.
    easy manners; an easy style
    • 1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC:
      the easy vigour of a line
  6. (informal, derogatory, of a person) Consenting readily to sex.
    She has a reputation for being easy; they say she slept with half the senior class.
  7. Not making resistance or showing unwillingness; tractable; yielding; compliant.
  8. (finance, dated) Not straitened as to money matters; opposed to tight.
    The market is easy.

Synonyms

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Antonyms

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Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Faroese: isi
  • → Finnish: iisi

Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adverb

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easy (comparative easier, superlative easiest)

  2. In a relaxed or casual manner.
    After his illness, John decided to take it easy.
    Everything comes easy to her.
    • 1786, John Jeffries, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, A narrative of the two aerial Voyages of Dr. J. with Mons. Blanchard: with meteorological observations and remarks.‎[2], page 45:
      We immediately threw out all the little things we had with us, ſuch as biſcuits, apples, &c. and after that one of our oars or wings; but ſtill deſcending, we caſt away the other wing, and then the governail ; having likewiſe had the precaution, for fear of accidents, while the Balloon was filling, partly to looſen and make it go eaſy, I now ſucceeded in attempting to reach without the Car, and unſcrewing the moulinet, with all its apparatus; I likewiſe caſt that into the ſea.
  4. In a manner without strictness or harshness; gently; softly.
    go easy on the sarcasm
    Jane went easier on him after he broke his arm.
  6. Handily; at the very least.
    This project will cost 15 million dollars, easy.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Translations

Noun

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easy (plural easies)

  1. Something that is easy. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Verb

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easy (third-person singular simple present easies, present participle easying, simple past and past participle easied)

  1. (rowing) Synonym of easy-oar

Anagrams

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Middle English

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Adjective

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easy

  1. Alternative form of esy

Adverb

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easy

  1. Alternative form of esy
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