content

Etymology 1

From Middle English contenten (“to satisfy”), from Latin contentus (“contained; satisfied”), past participle of continēre (“to contain”).

adj

1. Satisfied, pleased, contented.
   You, Aubrey, are my most complete man. You're brave, compassionate, kind: a content man. That is your secret—contentment; I am 24 and I've never known it. I'm forever in pursuit, and I don't even know what I am chasing. 1981, Colin Welland, Chariots of Fire, spoken by Harold M. Abrahams

noun

1. Satisfaction, contentment; pleasure.
   They were in a state of sleepy content after supper.
   ‘I understand you—upon every other subject, but the only one, my content requires, you are ready to obey me.’ 1791, Elizabeth Inchbald, A Simple Story, Penguin, published 2009, page 287
   Like an empress, I feel great content surrounded by the familiar sounds of laughter, bickering, rattling plates, clicking chopsticks, smacking lips, and noisy sipping of the longevity brew. 2008, Mingmei Yip, Peach Blossom Pavilion
   Kleph moved slowly from the door and sank upon the chaise longue with a little sigh of content. 1946, C.L. Moore, Vintage Season
2. (obsolete) Acquiescence without examination.
3. That which contents or satisfies; that which if attained would make one happy.
4. (UK, House of Lords) An expression of assent to a bill or motion; an affirmative vote.
5. (UK, House of Lords, by metonymy) A member who votes in assent.

intj

1. (archaic) Alright, agreed.

verb

1. (transitive) To give contentment or satisfaction; to satisfy; to make happy.
   You can't have any more - you'll have to content yourself with what you already have.
   Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy recommend rigatoni in the Geometry of Pasta, and Christopher Boswell, the chef behind the Rome Sustainable Food project, prefers wholemeal paccheri or rigatoni in his book Pasta, on the basis that “the flavour of the whole grain is strong enough to stand up to the sharp and salty sheep’s milk cheese” (as I can find neither easily, I have to content myself with brown penne instead). 3 November 2016, Felicity Cloake, “How to make the perfect cacio e pepe”, in The Guardian
2. (transitive, obsolete) To satisfy the expectations of; to pay; to requite.

Etymology 2

From Middle English content (plural contentes, contence), from Latin contentus, past participle of continēre (“to hold in, contain”), as Etymology 1, above. English apparently developed a substantive form of the adjective, which is not mirrored in Romance languages.

adj

1. (obsolete) Contained.

noun

1. (uncountable) That which is contained.
   Coordinate term: contents
2. Subject matter; semantic information (or a portion or body thereof); that which is contained in writing, speech, video, etc.
   Although eloquently delivered, the content of the speech was objectionable.
   Some online video creators upload new content every day.
   Prolific creators manage their voluminous content with any of various content management systems.
   In the future, instead of bottles of dead "content," I imagine electronically defined venues, where minds residing in bodies scattered all over the planet are admitted, either by subscription or a ticket at a time, into the real-time presence of the creative act. 2000 October, John Perry Barlow, “The Next Economy Of Ideas”, in Wired, →ISSN
   The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about "creating compelling content", or[…]and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. 2013-06-21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 27
3. The amount of material contained; contents.
   Light beer has a lower alcohol content than regular beer.
4. (obsolete) Capacity for containing.
5. (mathematics) The n-dimensional space contained by an n-dimensional polytope (called volume in the case of a polyhedron and area in the case of a polygon); length, area or volume, generalized to an arbitrary number of dimensions.
6. (algebra, ring theory, of a polynomial with coefficients in a GCD domain) The greatest common divisor of the coefficients; (of a polynomial with coefficients in an integral domain) the common factor of the coefficients which, when removed, leaves the adjusted coefficients with no common factor that is noninvertible.