a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
Origin: 1175–1225; (v.) Middle English comfortien, variant of confortien,conforten < Anglo-French, Old French conforter < Late Latin confortāre to strengthen, equivalent to con-con- + -fortāre verbal derivative of Latin fortis strong; (noun) Middle English < Anglo-French, Old French, noun derivative of the v.
Related forms
com·fort·less, adjective
un·com·fort·ed, adjective
Can be confused:comfit, comfort (see synonym note at the current entry).
Synonyms 1. pacify, calm, solace, gladden. Comfort,console,relieve,soothe imply assuaging sorrow, worry, discomfort, or pain. To comfort is to lessen the sadness or sorrow of someone and to strengthen by inspiring with hope and restoring a cheerful outlook: to comfort a despairing person. Console, a more formal word, means to make grief or distress seem lighter, by means of kindness and thoughtful attentions: to console a bereaved parent. Relieve means to lighten, lessen, or remove pain, trouble, discomfort, or hardship: to relieve a needy person. Soothe means to pacify or calm: to soothe a child. 1, 2. ease. 8.See ease.
late 13c., from O.Fr. conforter "to comfort, help, strengthen," from L.L. confortare "to strengthen much" (used in Vulgate), from L. com- intens. prefix + fortis "strong." The n. (early 13c.) replaced O.E. frofor. The noun comforts (as opposed to necessities and luxuries) is from 1650s.