displeasing

Perhaps a calque of Old French desplaisant, from the verb desplere (“to displease”). By surface analysis, dis- +‎ pleasing.

• IPA^(key): /dɪsˈpliːzɪŋ/

displeasing (comparative more displeasing, superlative most displeasing)

1. Unattractive, dislikable, objectionable.

   After the hurricane, the building was structurally sound but aesthetically displeasing'Bold text'.

   • 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Search for Mr. Hyde”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 25:

     Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; […]

   • 1908, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Hostages to Momus”, in The Gentle Grafter, New York, N.Y.: The McClure Company, →OCLC:

     […] but after all there's nothing less displeasing to me than a beefsteak smothered in mushrooms on a balcony in sound of the Broadway streetcars, with a hand-organ playing down below, and the boys hollering extras about the latest suicide.

   • 1910, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Tales of Old Japan‎^[1]:

     The taking of life being displeasing to Buddha, outside many of the temples old women and children earn a livelihood by selling sparrows, small eels, carp, and tortoises, which the worshipper sets free in honour of the deity, within whose territory cocks and hens and doves, tame and unharmed, perch on every jutty, frieze, buttress, and coigne of vantage.

displeasing

1. present participle and gerund of displease