Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Appreciative of benefits received; thankful.
  • adjective Expressing gratitude.
  • adjective Affording pleasure or comfort; agreeable.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pleasing to the mind or the senses; agreeable; gratifying; affording pleasure.
  • Betokening or expressing gratitude; denoting thankfulness.
  • Feeling kindly or tenderly on account of a favor or favors bestowed; disposed to acknowledge and repay benefits.
  • Synonyms Grateful, Thankful, beholden. Grateful is preferred when we speak of the general character of a person's mind: as, a man of a grateful disposition; an ungrateful wretch. Grateful often expresses the feeling, and the readiness to manifest the feeling by acts, even a long time after the rendering of the favor; thankful refers rather to the immediate acknowledgment of the favor by words. The same distinction is found in the negative forms, ungrateful, unthankful, thankless. Thankful is often loosely used for relieved or glad, where the thanks, if rendered, would be given to a merciful or helping Providence: as, I am thankful for my escape.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having a due sense of benefits received; kindly disposed toward one from whom a favor has been received; willing to acknowledge and repay, or give thanks for, benefits.
  • adjective Affording pleasure; pleasing to the senses; gratifying; delicious.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Showing appreciation, being thankful.
  • adjective Recognizing the importance of a source of pleasure.
  • adjective Pleasing, welcome.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective feeling or showing gratitude
  • adjective affording comfort or pleasure

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From obsolete grate, pleasing, from Latin grātus; see gwerə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

grate +‎ -ful, from Latin gratus ("pleasing, agreeable") + -ful.

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Examples

Comments

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  • in the sense of idiomatic

    March 12, 2008