The agreeable feeling produced when a wish, appetite, or sense is gratified.
The agreeable feeling produced when a wish, appetite, or sense is gratified — the broadest, most neutral term in the family.
The broad hub from which enjoyment, joy, delight, satisfaction, and contentment all branch, and the one word spanning both sensory and emotional gratification (“simple pleasures,” “sensual pleasure”). Unmarked for intensity, duration, or trigger. Cooler and more neutral than the charged joy or delight; unlike satisfaction it needn't follow a need being met; it alone keeps an older “desire / will” sense (“what's your pleasure?”, “at the king's pleasure”).
Late 14c. plesire, from Old French plaisir “enjoyment, delight, desire, will,” a noun use of the infinitive “to please,” from Latin placere “to please.” The ending shifted to -ure by analogy with measure, leisure.
The “desire / will” sense (“at one's pleasure”) is among the oldest; “feeling of enjoyment” is mid-15c.; “sensual gratification” early 15c. The verb (including a sexual sense, 1610s) followed. No sourced recent-generation shift.