different between fondness vs prepossession

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

pre- +? possession.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /p?i?p??z???n/

Noun

prepossession (countable and uncountable, plural prepossessions)

1. Preoccupation; having possession beforehand.
2. A preconceived opinion, or previous impression; bias, prejudice.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Folio Society 2008, p. 386:

     The spontaneous intellect of man always defines the divine which it feels in ways that harmonise with its temporary intellectual prepossessions.

Quotations

• 1791 : I am fully sensible to the greatness of that freedom, which I take with you on the present occasion; a liberty which seemed to me scarcely allowable, when I reflected on that distinguished and dignified station in which you stand, and the almost general prejudice and prepossession, which is so prevalent in the world against those of my complexion. - Letter from Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson, August 19, 1791

References

• prepossession in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.