Definition of "satisfying"

[T]he Standing Evidences of the Truth of the Goſpel, tho' in themſelves moſt firm, ſolid, and ſatisfying, yet make but faint Impreſſions on the Minds of many Chriſtians; […]

1705 November 8 (Gregorian calendar), Francis Atterbury, “A Standing Revelation, the Best Means of Conviction. A Sermon Preach’d before Her Majesty, at St. James’s Chapel, on Sunday, October 28. 1705, being the Festival of St. Simon and St. Jude.”, in Fourteen Sermons Preach’d on Several Occasions. […], London: […] E. P. [Edmund Parker?] for Jonah Bowyer, […], published 1708, page 328

As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.

2012 January, Robert M. Pringle, “How to Be Manipulative”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 3 October 2013, page 31

If my girls like something I cooked for them, they don’t exclaim that it is "satisfying." Rather, the kids seem to be using the word this way to refer not to all kinds of sensory experience, but to a subset of them, more often involving sound and touch than sight, smell or taste. And this is not random. […] Quite unconsciously, American kids are transforming the word "satisfying" into a way of being more Jahai-like, more specific, about sensation. Their "Definition 2" usage is giving overt expression to what the pleasures of hearing the gurgling of a bathtub draining and the feeling of popping Bubble Wrap have in common. You may have to work to wrap your head around the likeness between those two sensations, but it makes sense that a language, in this case, English, would develop a way of corralling auditory and tactile satisfaction off from the visual, olfactory and gustatory.

2022 July 30, John McWhorter, “Language Evolves Right Before Our Ears. It's Very 'Satisfying'”, in New York Times‎, archived from the original on 2022-07-31