amenity

English

Alternative forms

• amœnity (archaic)

Etymology

From French aménité, from Latin amoenitās (“pleasantness, delightfulness”), from amoenus (“pleasant, delightful”), of unknown origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈmiːnəti/, /əˈmɛnəti/

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

amenity (countable and uncountable, plural amenities)

1. Pleasantness.

   We especially enjoyed the amenity of the climate on our last holiday.

   • 1834, George Bancroft, chapter II, in A History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent to the Present Time, volume I, Boston: Charles Bowen, page 71:

     The harbor of Port Royal, rendered gloomy by recollections of misery, was avoided ; and after searching the coast and discovering places, which were so full of amenity, that melancholy itself could not but change its humor, as it gazed, the followers of Calvin planted themselves on the banks of the river May.

2. A thing or circumstance that is welcome and makes life a little easier or more pleasant.

   All the little amenities the hotel provided made our stay very enjoyable.

   • 1671, John Evelyn, edited by William Bray, Memoirs, new edition, volume II, London: Henry Colburn, published 1827, page 354:

     The Castle is an antique extent of ground, which now they call Marsfield, and would have ben a fitting area to have plac’d the Ducal palace in. The suburbs are large, the prospects sweete, with other amenities, not omitting the flower gardens, in which all the inhabitants excel.

3. Convenience.
4. (cartography) A unit pertaining to the infrastructure of a community, such as a public toilet, a postbox, a library, etc.

   Synonyms: facility, infrastructure

   • 2005, James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency, Grove Atlantic, page 40:

     Suburbia was the prescribed antidote to the dreariness of the hypertrophied industrial city—and most American cities had never been anything but that. They were short on amenity, overcrowded, and artless. Americans were sick of them and saw no way to improve them.

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