placid
adj/ˈplæsɪd/ · [ˈpʰlæsɪd]
Etymology Borrowed from French placide, from Latin placidus (“peaceful, calm, placid”), from placeō (“please, satisfy”).
1
calm and quiet; peaceful; tranquil
- a placid disposition
- a placid lake
3 more examples
- April advanced to May: a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its duration.1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 9, in Jane Eyre, HTML edition:
- The ant has made himself illustrious / Through constant industry industrious. / So what? / Would you be calm and placid / If you were full of formic acid?1941, Ogden Nash, “The Ant”, in The Face is Familiar, Garden City Publishing Company, page 224:
- [I]n the 575 days since [Oscar] Pistorius shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, there has been an unseemly scramble to construct revisionist histories, to identify evidence beneath that placid exterior of a pugnacious, hair-trigger personality.2014 October 21, Oliver Brown, “Oscar Pistorius jailed for five years – sport afforded no protection against his tragic fallibilities: Bladerunner's punishment for killing Reeva Steenkamp is but a frippery when set against the burden that her bereft parents, June and Barry, must carry [print version: No room for sentimentality in this tragedy, 13 September 2014, p. S22]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Sport):
- Derived terms
- Lake Placid, placidity, placidly, placidness, Placidyl, unplacid