Be content or be contented?

[Freeguy]

'Be content' or 'be contented'?

 

[probus]

To be content is to be agreeable to something, a proposal, a state of affairs, etc. For example "We are content that Michael should do this for us as trustee." To be contented, on the other hand, means to be happy and satisfied "He returned to his native Goa, and was contented to live there for the rest of his days."

 

[MikeNewYork]

Did you write the two passages?

 

[Freeguy]

What's wrong with that Mike? No. I didn't.

So either would work.

 

[Roman55]

To be content is to be agreeable to something, a proposal, a state of affairs, etc. For example "We are content that Michael should do this for us as trustee." To be contented, on the other hand, means to be happy and satisfied "He returned to his native Goa, and was contented to live there for the rest of his days."

I am not a teacher.

I find these definitions very dubious, or at best incomplete. Perhaps it's a Canadian English thing.

In my opinion, and according to this dictionary, see content see contented, their meanings are very similar and in many cases they are interchangeable.

When they are not interchangeable is often very subtle and not easy to explain to a non-native, or to anyone else for that matter.

One not-too-difficult-to-explain difference would be that contented can be used attributively whereas content isn't.
A contented look, not a content look.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Nothing wrong, Freeguy. I was just curious. I almost never use the word "contented" and I see little difference in meaning. But I think Roman brought up the most common usage difference. "Contented" can be used before the noun it modifies and "content" usually cannot.