penchant
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Unadapted borrowing from French penchant, present participle of pencher (“to tilt, to lean”), from Middle French, from Old French pengier (“to tilt, be out of line”), from Vulgar Latin *pendicāre, a derivative of Latin pendere (“to hang”).
Pronunciation
[edit]- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈpɒnʃɒn/, [ˈpɑ̃ʃɑ̃], /ˈpɛnt͡ʃənt/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - (US) IPA(key): /ˈpɛnt͡ʃənt/
- Rhymes: -ɒnʃɒn, -ɛntʃənt
Noun
[edit]penchant (countable and uncountable, plural penchants)
- Taste, liking, or inclination (for).
- He has a penchant for fine wine.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 264:
- Marie even then began the course which, in after-years, secured her so vast an influence in the court,—alternately taking up and laying down her claim to the youthful monarch's penchant; administering to his amusement, and ready to encourage his passing fancies.
- 1960 October, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 640:
- THE LONDON & NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY. By O. S. Nock. Ian Allan. 30s.
[...] One scarcely imagined, for example, that the great steel works at Crewe owed its existence to Sir Richard Moon's penchant for the principle of "Do it yourself", a principle born of a methodical, economical and far-seeing mind.
- 2019, Idles, "Never Fight a Man With a Perm", Joy as an Act of Resistance.
- I said I've got a penchant for smokes and kicking douches in the mouth / Sadly for you my last cigarette's gone out
- 2021 September 22, Stephen Roberts, “The writings on the wall...”, in RAIL, number 940, page 74:
- Just like Marple, there's a plaque at the London terminus [Paddington] commemorating a fictional character - a polite, friendly little bear from darkest Peru who has a penchant for marmalade sarnies.
- (card games, uncountable) A card game resembling bezique.
- (card games) In the game of penchant, any queen and jack of different suits held at the same time.
Synonyms
[edit]- desire, see also Thesaurus:predilection
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]taste, liking, or inclination (for)
|
French
[edit]Noun
[edit]penchant m (plural penchants)
Participle
[edit]penchant
Further reading
[edit]- “penchant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)pend-
- English terms borrowed from French
- English unadapted borrowings from French
- English terms derived from French
- English terms derived from Middle French
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Vulgar Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɒnʃɒn
- Rhymes:English/ɒnʃɒn/2 syllables
- Rhymes:English/ɛntʃənt
- Rhymes:English/ɛntʃənt/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- en:Card games
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns
- French non-lemma forms
- French present participles