easy

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English eesy, esy, partly from Middle English ese (“ease”) + -y, equivalent to ease +‎ -y, and partly from Old French aisié (“eased, at ease, at leisure”), past participle of aisier (“to put at ease”), from aise (“empty space, elbow room, opportunity”), of uncertain origin. See ease. Merged with Middle English ethe, eathe (“not difficult, easy”), from Old English ēaþe, īeþe (“easy, smooth, not difficult”), from Proto-Germanic *auþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *aut- (“empty, lonely”). Compare also Old Saxon ōþi (“easy, vacant, empty”), Old High German ōdi (“easy, effortless, vacant, empty”), Old Norse auðr (“easy, vacant, empty”). More at ease, eath.

Pronunciation

Adjective

easy (comparative easier or more easy, superlative easiest or most easy)

  1. (now rare except in certain expressions) Comfortable; at ease.
    • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 16, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
      “[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”
    Now that I know it's taken care of, I can rest easy at night.
  2. Requiring little skill or effort.
    It's often easy to wake up but hard to get up.
    • 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
      As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.
    • 2015 October 27, Matt Preston, The Simple Secrets to Cooking Everything Better‎[1], Plum, →ISBN, page 192:
      You could just use ordinary shop-bought kecap manis to marinade the meat, but making your own is easy, has a far more elegant fragrance and is, above all, such a great brag! Flavouring kecap manis is an intensely personal thing, so try this version now and next time cook the sauce down with crushed, split lemongrass and a shredded lime leaf.
    The teacher gave an easy test to her students.
  3. Causing ease; giving comfort, or freedom from care or labour.
    Rich people live in easy circumstances.
    an easy chair
  4. Free from constraint, harshness, or formality; unconstrained; smooth.
    easy manners; an easy style
    • (Can we date this quote by Alexander Pope and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
      the easy vigour of a line
  5. (informal, derogatory, of a person) Consenting readily to sex.
    He has a reputation for being easy; they say he slept with half the senior class.
  6. Not making resistance or showing unwillingness; tractable; yielding; compliant.
    • (Can we date this quote by Dryden and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
      He gained their easy hearts.
    • (Can we date this quote by Sir Walter Scott and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
      He is too tyrannical to be an easy monarch.
  7. (finance, dated) Not straitened as to money matters; opposed to tight.
    The market is easy.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

comfortable — see comfortable
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Adverb

easy (comparative easier, superlative easiest)

  1. In a relaxed or casual manner.
    • 1786, John Jeffries, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, A narrative of the two aerial Voyages of Dr. J. with Mons. Blanchard: with meteorological observations and remarks.‎[2], page 45:
      We immediately threw out all the little things we had with us, ſuch as biſcuits, apples, &c. and after that one of our oars or wings; but ſtill deſcending, we caſt away the other wing, and then the governail ; having likewiſe had the precaution, for fear of accidents, while the Balloon was filling, partly to looſen and make it go eaſy, I now ſucceeded in attempting to reach without the Car, and unſcrewing the moulinet, with all its apparatus; I likewiſe caſt that into the ſea.
    After his illness, John decided to take it easy.
  2. In a manner without strictness or harshness.
    Jane went easier on him after he broke his arm.
  3. Used an intensifier for large magnitudes.
    This project will cost 15 million dollars, easy.
  4. Not difficult, not hard. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Derived terms

Noun

easy (plural easies)

  1. Something that is easy

Verb

easy (third-person singular simple present easies, present participle easying, simple past and past participle easied)

  1. (rowing) Synonym of easy-oar

Anagrams

Middle English

Adjective

easy

  1. Alternative form of esy

Adverb

easy

  1. Alternative form of esy

References

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