different between penchant vs prepossession

English

Etymology

Borrowed 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 *pendic?re, a derivative of Latin pendere (“to hang, to lean”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p?n??n/, [?p?????]
• (US) IPA^(key): /?p?nt???nt/

Noun

penchant (countable and uncountable, plural penchants)

1. Taste, liking, or inclination (for).
   • 2019, Idles, "Never Fight a Man With a Perm", Joy as an Act of Resistance.

   He has a penchant for fine wine.

2. (card games, uncountable) A card game resembling bezique.
3. (card games) In the game of penchant, any queen and jack of different suits held at the same time.

Synonyms

• desire, see also Thesaurus:predilection

Related terms

Translations

French

Noun

penchant m (plural penchants)

1. penchant

Verb

penchant

1. present participle of pencher

Further reading

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

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.