polite - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Latin polītus (“polished”), past participle of poliō (“to polish, smooth”); see polish.

polite (comparative politer or more polite, superlative politest or most polite)

  1. Well-mannered, civilized.
    It's not polite to use a mobile phone in a restaurant.
    Try and be polite to Auntie Maria for once.
    • 1733, Alexander Pope, Epistle to Bathurst:
      He marries, bows at court, and grows polite.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      I told him about everything I could think of; and what I couldn't think of he did. He asked about six questions during my yarn, but every question had a point to it. At the end he bowed and thanked me once more. As a thanker he was main-truck high; I never see anybody so polite.
  2. (obsolete) Smooth, polished, burnished.

well-mannered

polite (third-person singular simple present polites, present participle politing, simple past and past participle polited)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To polish; to refine; to render polite.
    • 1691, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation. […], London: […] Samuel Smith, […], →OCLC:
      those exercises plied, which polite men's spirits

polite f pl

  1. feminine plural of polito

polīte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of poliō

polite

  1. second-person singular voseo imperative of polir combined with te