POLITENESS • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Politeness

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/pəlˈaɪtnəs/ Listen

noun

Politeness n.

High finish; smoothness; burnished elegance. (R.)

The quality or state of being polite; refinement of manners; urbanity; courteous behavior; complaisance; obliging attentions.

Synonyms: Courtesy; good breeding; refinement; urbanity; courteousness; affability; complaisance; civility; gentility; courtliness. Politeness, Courtesy. Politeness denotes that ease and gracefulness of manners which first sprung up in cities, connected with a desire to please others by anticipating their wants and wishes, and studiously avoiding whatever might give them pain. Courtesy is, etymologically, the politeness of courts. It displays itself in the address and manners; it is shown more especially in receiving and entertaining others, and is a union of dignified complaisance and kindness.

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Etymology of 'Politeness'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Politeness" Quotes from Famous Books

... grave politeness. "Will you come in?" He led the way into the parlor, where he was reading when she rang, and placed a chair for her, and then shut the parlor door, and waited for her to offer him the papers that rattled ...

— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... landlady he must pay her invariably the same attentions and be more infallible than the pope himself. To compass this result, he allowed no points of contact between himself and her except those that politeness demanded, and those which necessarily exist between two persons living under the same roof. Thus, though he and the Abbe Troubert took their regular three meals a day, he avoided the family breakfast by inducing Mademoiselle Gamard to send his coffee to his own ...

— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac

... see several thousand of these strange vans moving together, their trains being sometimes three or four miles in length. Then their politeness might also be spoken of, for while it is true that they have a traditional politeness, it is not a matter of history. Their sledges were never in the public road but at least 10 to 20 rods outside of the road in the sage brush and cactus, ...

— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... mind would slip away to Berkeley Square. She had, of course, noted young Craven's tacit resistance to the pressure of her desire, and her girlish vanity had resented it. But she had remembered that even in these active days of the ruthless development of the ego a sense of politeness, of what is "due" from one human being to another, still lingers in some perhaps old-fashioned bosoms. Lady Sellingworth was elderly. Craven might have thought it was his absolute duty to protect her from the possible dangers lurking between Regent Street ...

— December Love • Robert Hichens

... hear that a traveller had been here, and no one had received him with courtesy and politeness; and that he had gone away as he came; for this reason God knows what punishment she will inflict on me, or how far her displeasure will be raised; yea more, it is a matter affecting my life," I ...

— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

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