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In my native language, we have two words to define the degrees of happiness.

One word means a high degree of happiness. Google translated my native word to "bliss", which is the correct word as I see it.

But when I was searching for another word to mean a low degree of happiness, Google translated my native word to a total unfamiliar and strange word "Posterous".

I was expecting the word "Pleasure" or something like that, but I got the word "Posterous"

And I can't even find any definition for that word in Google. Is that even a word?

And can I use the word "Pleasure" to mean a low degree of happiness?

Is there any single word available in English to mean that?

Question Update:

To add more detail to my question:

We have a common meaning for those two words as follows,

Bliss : The extreme happiness or pleasure can be felt by mind or heart. (Ecstasy)

"The other word" : The happiness in a low degree can be felt by body. In others words, it can be temporary.

Examples:

The pleasure of seeing a favourite scene by the eyes

The pleasure of eating a favourite dishes by the tongue

The pleasure of listening a favourite song by the ears

There is also one other word I got from some websites, that is "eroticism" which means "sexual desire or excitement". But that's not the word I'm looking for.

I want a common word to describe "a low degree of happiness".

In our language, the word is formed like having a prefix (but not with hyphens) to mean the degrees of happiness,

High-happiness

Low-happiness

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  • high degree/low degree of happiness. No, pleasure and happiness are not the same at all.
    – Lambie
    Jan 5, 2018 at 16:38
  • OK then what do you suggest? Also please have a look at this link google.co.in/…:
    – Raj 33
    Jan 5, 2018 at 16:43
  • To do something at the pleasure of someone else. Pleasure there is not normal pleasure, it means: as they want to.
    – Lambie
    Jan 5, 2018 at 16:46
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    There are words expressing different degrees of happiness in English too. Here are a few adjectives in order of increasing happiness: satisfied, happy, joyous/joyful, and ecstatic. Satisified isn't exactly a "lesser happy", but you could use it to express a mild happiness. I suppose the same can be said of "pleased".
    – urnonav
    Jan 5, 2018 at 16:57
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    This native US English speaker has never heard of the word posterous, and I can't find any references to it (other than to an old blogging platform). Very strange.
    – stangdon
    Jan 5, 2018 at 17:59

3 Answers 3

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I'm a native Tamil (தமிழ்) speaker, I was searching for the meaning of the word 'preposterous' and out of curiosity, I searched for the word 'posterous' and found it had totally unrelated meaning like

'Ciṟṟiṉpam' (சிற்றின்பம்) which means = cirriya (சிரிய) - small + Inpam (இன்பம்) - happiness

but I think it isn't necessarily means happiness. It was often referred as negative thing which should be avoided.

The word Pleasure is comparably small degree of happiness with Bliss.

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"Posterous" is not a word in standard English. It is a Latin word (an adjective meaning "coming after", or figuratively "inferior")

I can confirm that the Tamil சிற்றின்பம் is indeed translated as "Posterous" by Google translate. This is an error. It seems to be quite a deep error, as other languages contain transliterations of "posterous", or even (Hindi) just has "Posterous" in Latin script, not even Devanagari. Google translate seems to be fundamentally broken here.

"Pleasure" has a range of meanings centred around "a state of being contented". That may be a good equivalant. There are a range of words meaning "a low level of happiness": contentment, ease, equanimity. Most of these have the sense of "nothing bad happening"

The Tamil சிற்றின்பம் seems to have a (secondary?) meaning of "sensual pleasure" so perhaps "lustfulness" or "arousal" could be appropriate.

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  • Google gets its translations from comparing documents, I speculate that the blogging platform was referred to in Tamil, and it has has picked up entirely the wrong idea of the meaning of the Tamil word as referring solely to a blogging platform. It might, moreover be a multi language error, where a word that means "sensual pleasure" in a third language was used as the localized name of a blogging platform in some third language, and this has "infected" google translate's understanding of Tamil. A native speaker of Tamil should flag the translation or suggest something better.
    – James K
    Jul 17, 2020 at 7:53
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Well, it was a blogging platform, that's now defunct... but basically, that's not an English word.

Bliss does, indeed, mean an extremely high degree of happiness or contentment.

A transient pleasant sensation might be called pleasure, which can have erotic connotations, but not always.

You could also try well-being or comfort (in the noun sense).

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