Penchant (Noun)
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Pronunciation: [‘pen-chênt]
Definition 1: Partiality, predilection, proclivity, bent, or strong liking, as a penchant for romantic evenings by the fireside.
Usage 1: There is little to say about the usage of today’s word since it stands out there all alone: no adjective or verb has been derived from it. We can’t penchant anything nor can anything be even slightly penchant. We may only have a penchant for something and most of us have a plethora of them.
Suggested usage: Penchants are biases and some are stronger than others: "Maurine’s penchant for ice cream turned out to be stronger than all the exercise equipment she had bought combined." However, it is our penchants, after all, that determine our individuality, "Amber would have been the most popular girl in school except for her penchants for classical music and art deco architecture."
Etymology: French, from the present participle of pencher "to incline," the direct descendant of Vulgar Latin *pendicare, itself the heir to the lexical riches of Latin pendere "to hang, weigh (as in hanging scales). Today’s word is a relative of "spider" and "pansy." How? The original Proto-Indo-European root was *(s)pen- "spin," with a wobbly [s]. "Spider" comes from an Old Germanic word meaning "spinner." "Pansy" comes from Old French pensee "though, remembrance" that goes back to Latin pendere, since thinking is a kind of weighing. How did Latin get "hang, weigh" from the original sense "spin"? "Spin" originally implied drawing yarn out of a bundle of wool and spinning it on a bobbin that hung from the hand.
—Dr. Language, yourDictionary.com
