please [ME] A word that comes via Old French plaisir ‘to please’ from Latin placere, found also in implacable [LME]. Phrases like yes, please were originally short for ‘may it please you’ or ‘let it please you’. Please on its own, as used today, was not known to Shakespeare, who used please you: The proverbs you can’t please everyone and little things please little minds are both old and can be traced back to the late 15th and late 16th centuries. Something pleasant [ME] was originally something ‘pleasing’, the meaning of the word in its French source. If you were complacent [M17th] you were originally willing to go along with what pleases others.