penchant

CEFRC1

/ˈpɒnʃɒn/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A strong liking or natural tendency to do something.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A card game resembling bezique.

Examples

  • He has a penchant for whistling at pretty ladies he sees on the street.

  • Women have a natural penchant for the mysterious.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
4
Parts of speech
1
Citations
3
Synonyms
1

Also pronounced

  • /ˈpɛnt͡ʃənt/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. In the game of penchant, any queen and jack of different suits held at the same time.

  2. Taste, liking, or inclination (for).

More examples

In context

  • He has a penchant for fine wine.

  • Just like Marple, there's a plaque at the London terminus [Paddington] commemorating a fictional character - a polite, friendly little bear from darkest Peru who has a penchant for marmalade sarnies.

  • 2019, Idles, "Never Fight a Man With a Perm", Joy as an Act of Resistance. I said I've got a penchant for smokes and kicking douches in the mouth / Sadly for you my last cigarette's gone out

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Despite his strict diet, he had a blank for eating chocolate every night.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

Unadapted borrowing 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 *pendicāre, a derivative of Latin pendere (“to hang”).