satisfaction

plural satisfactions

1. countableuncountableA fulfilment of a need or desire.

   The witch, repository of hieratic lore and folk legends and occult arcana, became the distributor of philtres and unguents, electuaries and pastilles, herbs and charms and incantations - directed toward sexual pleasures and amatory satisfactions.

   1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 223

   Synonyms: repletion

2. countableuncountableThe pleasure obtained by the fulfillment of one or more needs or desires; a sense of contentment with one's situation and achievements.

   November 4, 1860, Henry David Thoreau, letter to Mr. D. R. This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction.

   2 more examples

   Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff.

   1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   This early rigidification and satisfaction with his own conclusions made him insensitive to new political and philosophical ideas.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 35

3. countableuncountableThe source of such gratification.
4. countableuncountableA reparation for an injury or loss.

   Synonyms: amends, recompense, remuneration, amends, acquittal, assyth, bote, compensation

5. countableuncountableA vindication for a wrong suffered.

   The count demanded satisfaction in the form of a duel at dawn.

   1 more example

   He is knight dubb'd with vnhatche'd Rapier, and on carpet conſideration, but he is a diuell in priuate brall, soules and bodies hath he diuorc'd three, and his incenſement at this moment is ſo implacable, that ſatisfaction can be none, but by pangs of death and ſepulcher: Hob, nob, is his word: giu't or take't.

   c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], page 269

6. countableeuphemisticuncountableSexual pleasure.

   To young man who enjoys receiving oral satisfaction, this BiWM will give you all you want.

   1976 April 10, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, page 18