different between flair vs tendency

English

Etymology

From Middle English flayre, from Old French flair (“scent, odour”), from flairier (“to reek, smell”), from Latin fl?gr?, dissimilated variation of fr?gr? (“emit a sweet smell”, verb). More at fragrant.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fl???/
• (US) enPR: flâr, IPA^(key): /fl???/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Homophone: flare

Noun

flair (countable and uncountable, plural flairs)

1. A natural or innate talent or aptitude.

   Synonyms: gift, knack, talent

   • 1999, Lucy Honig, The Truly Needy And Other Stories, University of Pittsburgh Press (?ISBN), page 73:

     The cafard. The cockroach. The French certainly had a flair for labeling their unhappiness. Long ago he had begun to visualize this nagging misery as the insect the word also named.

2. Distinctive style or elegance.

   Synonyms: elan, elegance, grace, panache, style
3. (obsolete) Smell; odor.
4. (obsolete) Olfaction; sense of smell.

Translations

Verb

flair (third-person singular simple present flairs, present participle flairing, simple past and past participle flaired)

1. (transitive) To add flair.

Anagrams

• filar, frail

French

Etymology

From flairer, from Latin flagrare (“to blow”). Cognate to Portuguese cheiro.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fl??/

Noun

flair m (plural flairs)

1. sense of smell
2. (by extension) intuition, sixth sense

Further reading

• “flair” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• rifla

Old French

Noun

flair m (oblique plural flairs, nominative singular flairs, nominative plural flair)

1. smell; odor
2. sense of smell

Scots

Alternative forms

• fluir

Etymology

From Old English fl?r.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fler/

Noun

flair (plural flairs)

1. floor
   • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin 2009, p. 140:

     He skited it over the flair maybe if it was a jotter and it was you to go and get it.

Westrobothnian

Etymology

From Old Norse fleiri, from Proto-Germanic *flaizô.

Adjective

flair

1. More; comparative of marge (“many,”) and mang.
2. Many, several.

English

Etymology

Ultimately from Latin tendere / tend?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?nd?nsi/
• Hyphenation: ten?den?cy

Noun

tendency (plural tendencies)

1. A likelihood of behaving in a particular way or going in a particular direction; a tending toward.

2. (politics) An organised unit or faction within a larger political organisation.
   • 1974, James Boggs, Grace Lee Boggs, Revolution and Evolution, NYU Press ?ISBN, page 134

     Mao launched the struggle against the vulgar materialist tendency within the party as early as 1937.

   • 1997, S. Onslow, Backbench Debate within the Conservative Party and its Influence on British Foreign Policy, 1948-57, Springer ?ISBN, page 234

     In stark contrast to the Europeanist tendency within the party and the Suez Group, this group had a short history.

   • 2013, Richard Gillespie, Lourdes Lopez Nieto, Michael Waller, Factional Politics and Democratization, Routledge ?ISBN, page 83

     It reinforced the position of the conformist tendency within the party, since the majority of the candidates were old politicians, many of them members of Papandreou's centre-left CU faction back in the mid-1960s.

Synonyms

• inclination
• disposition
• propensity
• penchant
• trend

Derived terms

• multitendency

Translations