different between fondness vs affection

English

Etymology

From Middle English fondnes, fondnesse, fonnednesse, equivalent to fond +? -ness.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?f?ndn?s/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?f?ndn?s/
• Hyphenation: fond?ness

Noun

fondness (countable and uncountable, plural fondnesses)

1. The quality of being fond: liking something, foolishness; doting affection; propensity.
   • 1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xvii:

     I stopped taking the sweets and condiments I had got from home. The mind having taken a different turn, the fondness for condiments wore away, and I now relished the boiled spinach which in Richmond tasted insipid, cooked without condiments. Many such experiments taught me that the real seat of taste was not the tongue but the mind.

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English affection, affeccion, affeccioun, from Old French affection, from Latin affecti?nem, from affecti?; see affect.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??f?k??n/
• Hyphenation: af?fec?tion
• Rhymes: -?k??n

Noun

affection (countable and uncountable, plural affections)

1. The act of affecting or acting upon.
2. The state of being affected, especially: a change in, or alteration of, the emotional state of a person or other animal, caused by a subjective affect (a subjective feeling or emotion), which arises in response to a stimulus which may result from either thought or perception.
3. An attribute; a quality or property; a condition.
   • 1756, Robert Simson, Euclid's Elements

     A Porism is a proposition in which it is proposed to demonstrate that some one thing, or more things than one, are given, to which, as also to each of innumerable other things, not given indeed, but which have the same relation to those which are given, it is to be shewn that there belongs some common affection described in the proposition.

4. An emotion; a feeling or natural impulse acting upon and swaying the mind.
   • 1905, John C. Ager (translator), Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell Chapter 27

     It is known that each individual has a variety of affections, one affection when in joy, another when in grief, another when in sympathy and compassion, another when in sincerity and truth, another when in love and charity, another when in zeal or in anger, another when in simulation and deceit, another when in quest of honor and glory, and so on.

5. A feeling of love or strong attachment.
   • 1908, Gorge Bernard Shaw, Getting Married/Spurious "Natural" Affection

     What is more, they are protected from even such discomfort as the dislike of his prisoners may cause to a gaoler by the hypnotism of the convention that the natural relation between husband and wife and parent and child is one of intense affection, and that to feel any other sentiment towards a member of one's family is to be a monster.

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice Chapter 61

     Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her drew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected.

6. (medicine, archaic) Disease; morbid symptom; malady.
   • 1907, The Medical Brief (volume 35, page 840)

     A heavy clay soil is bad for all neuralgics, and the house should be dry, and on a sandy or gravel soil. The desideratum for all neuralgic affections is perpetual summer […]

Usage notes

In the sense of "feeling of love or strong attachment", it is often in the plural; formerly followed by "to", but now more generally by "for" or "toward(s)", for example filial, social, or conjugal affections; to have an affection for or towards children

Synonyms

• (kind feeling): attachment, fondness, kindness, love, passion, tenderness

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

affection (third-person singular simple present affections, present participle affectioning, simple past and past participle affectioned)

1. (now rare) To feel affection for. [from 16th c.]
   • 1764, Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, V:

     Why, truth is truth, I do not think my lady Isabella ever much affectioned my young lord, your son: yet he was a sweet youth as one should see.

Translations

Further reading

• affection at OneLook Dictionary Search
• affection in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• affection in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin affecti?, affecti?nem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.f?k.sj??/

Noun

affection f (plural affections)

1. affection, love, fondness
2. medical condition, complaint, disease

Further reading

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

Scots

Noun

affection (plural affections)

1. affection

References

• Eagle, Andy, ed. (2016) The Online Scots Dictionary, Scots Online.