comfort
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkʌm.fət/
ipa: /ˈkʊm.fət/
enpr: kŭm'fərt
ipa: /ˈkʌm.fɚt/
ipa: [ˈkʰʌɱ.fɚt]
enpr: kŭmfôrt'
ipa: /kʌmˈfɔɹt/
Forms: form: comforts
Etymology: From Middle English comfort, from Old French cunfort, confort, from the stem of Late Latin confortō. It replaced Old English frofor, Middle English frovre.
Senses: examples: text: Sleep in comfort with our new mattress.
text: But all was in vain: For having ranged up and down the Woods for ſome days, without finding the leaſt comfort to their hungry deſires, they were forced to return again unto the River. […] At laſt they arrived at the Coaſt of the Sea, where they found ſome comfort and relief to their former miſeries, and alſo means to ſeek more.
ref: 1684, chapter III, in Bucaniers of America: Or, A True Account of the Moſt Remarkable Aſſaults Committed of Late Years Upon the Coaſts of the West-Indies, by Bucaniers of Jamica and Tortuga, Both English and French; Wherein are Contained More Eſpecially, the Unparallel'd Exploits of Sir Henry Morgan, Our Engliſh Jamaican Hero, who ſack'd Puerto Velo, Burnt Panama. &c [Part II], volume 1, London: Printed for William Crooke, translation of De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, […] by John Eſquemeling, page 30:
text: How often is the comfort of a whole family abridged by some trifling circumstance, that ought not to have made a visible impression!
ref: 1850, T. S. Arthur, “A Rise in the Butter Market”, in Sketches of Life and Character, Philadelphia: J. W. Bradley, →OCLC, page 59:
text: In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
ref: 1937 September 21, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “An Unexpected Party”, in The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published February 1966 (August 1967 printing), →OCLC, page 15:
antonyms: austerity
glosses: Contentment, ease.
examples: text: the comforts of home
glosses: Something that offers comfort.
examples: text: We still have the spare tire? That's a comfort at least.
synonyms: word: liss
word: solace
word: alleviation
word: comfort
word: consolation
word: ease
word: liss
word: release
word: relief
word: respite
word: solace
glosses: A consolation; something relieving suffering or worry.
examples: text: The outcome of the peace negotiations in Moscow in 1940 was a heavy blow to the young nation, but in the same time a great comfort: at least the independency was preserved.
glosses: A cause of relief or satisfaction.
Derived terms: cold comfort
comfortability
comfortable
comfortative
comfort break
comfort-eat
comfort eating
comfortfic
comfort fic
comfort food
comfortful
comfort girl
comfortize
comfortless
comfort letter
comfortment
comfort noise
comfort room
comfortsome
comfort station
comfort stone
comfort stop
comfort tone
comfortwear
comfort woman
comfort zone
creature comfort
discomfort
Dutch comfort
Job's comfort
Lawson comfort criterion
letter of comfort
lip comfort
miscomfort
thermal comfort
too close for comfort
uncomfort