The Collaborative International Dictionary
Complaisant \Com"plai*sant\, a. [F. complaisant, p. pr. of complaire to acquiesce as a favor, fr. L. complacere. See Complacent.] Desirous to please; courteous; obliging; compliant; as, a complaisant gentleman.
There are to whom my satire seems too bold:
Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough.
--Pope.
Syn: Obliging; courteous; affable; gracious; civil; polite; well-bred. See Obliging. -- Com"plai*sant`ly, adv. -- Com"plai*sant`ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1640s, from French complaisant (16c.), in Middle French, "pleasing," present participle of complaire "acquiesce to please," from Latin complacere "be very pleasing" (see complacent, with which it overlapped till mid-19c.). Possibly influenced in French by Old French plaire "gratify."
Wiktionary
a. 1 compliant 2 Willing to do what please others. 3 (context archaic English) polite, showing respect
WordNet
adj. showing a cheerful willingness to do favors for others; "to close one's eyes like a complaisant husband whose wife has taken a lover"; "the obliging waiter was in no hurry for us to leave" [syn: obliging]
Usage examples of "complaisant".
Vivian Gruder stresses, quite reasonably, that it was the social identity of the group as landed proprietors that made them so apparently complaisant about ditching privileges and anachronisms to which their caste had long been attached.
I promised everything, and she did her best to convince me that she would be quite complaisant on the first opportunity.
I profited by the opportunity, and remained with Mimi for two hours, finding her so complaisant and even passionate that when I left her I had nothing more to desire.
Bennet before breakfast, a conversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress might be found for it at Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on.
Fathom, who was naturally complaisant, did not discourage these advances.
I had insensibly loved the board which echoed with applause at my sallies, and the comrades who, while they deprecated my satire, had been complaisant enough to hail it as wit.
I need not lose them if you will be complaisant, for they are meant for you.
Come along, but if the one that pleases me is not complaisant she shall have nothing.
He may dream of a beautiful and complaisant mistress, less exigent and mercurial than any a bachelor may hope to discover--and stand aghast at admitting her to his bank-book, his family-tree and his secret ambitions.
In the most reserved of modern societies the women who represent their highest flower are notoriously complaisant to royalty.
Henry found that the parliament was no less submissive in deeds than complaisant in their expressions, and that they would go the same lengths as the former in gratifying even his most lawless passions.
Briscoe had been a little less than complaisant toward the departed guest.
With Lafayette occupied at the front and the complaisant Petion rather than the fretful Bailly as mayor, the militant press and the popular clubs quickly revived their following in the spring of 1792.
Cogia Houssain, and, as a newcomer, was, according to custom, extremely civil and complaisant to all the merchants his neighbors.
The King was too much taken up with viewing the Person to whom he had been so complaisant, to take any Notice of such Whisperings.