pleasurance

From pleasure +‎ -ance.^[1]

pleasurance (countable and uncountable, plural pleasurances)

1. (rare) Pleasure.
   • c. 1540 [a. 1400?], The “Gest Hystoriale” of the Destruction of Troy: An Alliterative Romance, London: […] [F]or the Early English Text Society, by N[icholas] Trübner & Co., published 1869–1874, →OCLC, pages 112–113:

     When Cassandra hade knowyng how þe case stode, / Þat the mariage was made þo mighty betwene, / She brast out in a birre, bale to be-holde. / With a mighty noise, noye for to here, / Playnond with pytie, no pleasurance at all, / With sykyng & sorow said on this wise:— / “A! fonnet folke, why fare ye thus now, / With solas full sore, and sanges of myrthe, / At the weddyng of the weghes, þat shall to wo turne.

     Year: “Destruction of Troy”, in Middle English Compendium‎^[1].

   • 1846 December 10, “The Laborer’s Song”, in Mechanic’s Advocate, volume I, number 2, Albany, N.Y., →OCLC, page 9:

     Soon as our thoughts the proper path have taken, / Seeking that pleasurance which oft controls / Life’s stern realities—Heaven will tire each mind / With love for sacred Right—with Justice to mankind!

   • a. 1897, Henry Cuyler Bunner, “Behold the Deeds!”, in Richard Le Gallienne, editor, The Le Gallienne Book of American Verse, New York, N.Y.: Boni & Liveright, published 1925, →OCLC, page 247:

     Yet once, I mind me, Smith was forced to stay / Close in his room. Not calm as I was he; / But his noise brought no pleasurance, verily.

   • 1907 June 27 – July 3, Walter Raleigh, “Interlude: The Masque of Mediaeval Learning”, in The Oxford Historical Pageant, June 27–July 3, 1907: Book of Words, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [F]or the Pageant Committee […] at the University Press […] by Horace Hart, […], →OCLC, page 61:

     This is the wicked rout of pleasurance / That with fair seeming lureth men to fall. / Pleasure herself and Folly lead the dance, / Offering cups with many a luring call, / Whose wine sweet-tasting soon is turned to gall. / And they that follow them must surely die; / There is indeed no other remedy.

   • 1910 July 9, A. S., “‘Heart’s Happyland’”, in Cecil Cowper, editor, The Academy, volume LXXIX, number 1992, London, →OCLC, page 30, column 1:

     “And who art thou, and who art thou / Who seeks to enter in, / And from my own Heart’s Happyland / A pleasurance to win?” / “I am the King of Great Delight, / Whose other name is Sin.”

   • 1959 January 5, “Don’t Fight Winter Weather in a Worn Out Car!”, in Park City Daily News, 105 year, number 4, Bowling Green, Ky., →OCLC, page 9:

     Feel the joy of driving a clean, comfortable automobile, fully equipped to make the toughest weather a pleasurance to drive in.

2. (countable, nonstandard, rare) A pleasance (pleasure garden).
   • 1905 September 17, Maynard Evans, “One of Loveliest Domains in England for the Ambassador of the United States”, in Clark Howell, editor, The Atlanta Constitution, volume XXXVIII, number 94, Atlanta, Ga.: Constitution Publishing Co., →OCLC, page 5, column 2:

     Then there is a series of formal walled gardens. Beyond them are wide lawns, pleasurances, great trees, walks, orchards, garden houses, conservatories and an orangery.

   • 1928 June, Mrs. William H[enry] Lyne [i.e., Cassandra Oliver Lyne], “Gunston Hall—Famous Estate of George Mason”, in Confederate Veteran, volume XXXVI, number 6, Nashville, Tenn., →OCLC, page 211, column 2:

     Modeled like English estates, at Gunston Hall there was a flower garden, a pleasurance, a deer park, a bowling green, and a vegetable garden, shielded by a lovely row of white and lavender lilac.

   • 1959 September, Laura Sydenham, “The Churches of Shaftesbury”, in Shaftesbury and Its Abbey, Lingfield, Surrey: The Oakwood Press, →OCLC, pages 83–84:

     In Leighton Field, St. James’s, is a Holy Well mentioned in the reign of Edward IV, and the Abbey Fish Ponds there were still in existence, as a pleasurance, in the early nineteenth century, but now drained and reclaimed so that their banks are scarcely discernible.

   • 1946 spring, Clough Williams-Ellis, “Homes, Towns and Countryside. By Gilbert and Elizabeth Glen McAllister. Batsford. 18s.”, in Elizabeth McAllister, editor, Town and Country Planning, volume XIV, number 53, London: […] [F]or The Town and Country Planning Association by Vacher & Sons, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 33, column 2:

     Ivor Brown (as one would expect) stresses the importance of the arts in any civilised plan for living, projecting the beneficent past activities of C.E.M.A. [Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts] into the uncertain future, hopefully on the whole. His plea for “Regional Pleasurances” is plain common sense.

   • 1976 January, Lin Carter, “The Twelve Wizards of Ong”, in Lin Carter, editor, Kingdoms of Sorcery: An Anthology of Adult Fantasy, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →ISBN, part IV (Fantasy as Anecdote), section 3, page 158:

     While it clung to the very pinnacle of the mountain’s crest, the remainder of the peak had, by afreets subject to the Doctor’s art, been leveled into artificial terraces, which now bloomed with lush gardens and exotic pleasurances.