polite

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

• IPA^(key): /pəˈlaɪt/

• Audio:

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• Rhymes: -aɪt

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.
   • 1704, I[saac] N[ewton], “(please specify |book=1 to 3)”, in Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. […], London: […] Sam[uel] Smith, and Benj[amin] Walford, printers to the Royal Society, […], →OCLC:

     rays of light […] falling on […] a polite surface

• See also Thesaurus:polite

• impolite
• rude

• polish

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

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “polite”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

• “polite”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “polite”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• piolet, topile

polite f pl

1. feminine plural of polito

• oplite, pilote

polīte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of poliō

• “polite”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “polite”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

polite

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