Penchant Meaning
/ˈpɒnʃɒn/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounTaste, liking, or inclination (for).
nounA card game resembling bezique.
Sentence Examples
He has a penchant for whistling at pretty ladies he sees on the street.
Women have a natural penchant for the mysterious.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
Despite his strict diet, he had a ____ for eating chocolate every night.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She had a ____ for collecting vintage maps and had covered every wall of her study with them.
Word Origin & History
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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Marie even then began the course which, in after-years, secured her so vast an influence in the court,—alternately taking up and laying down her claim to the youthful monarch's penchant; administering to his amusement, and ready to encourage his passing fancies."
— 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 264:
"THE LONDON & NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY. By O. S. Nock. Ian Allan. 30s.
[...] One scarcely imagined, for example, that the great steel works at Crewe owed its existence to Sir Richard Moon's penchant for the principle of "Do it yourself", a principle born of a methodical, economical and far-seeing mind."
— 1960 October, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 640:
"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"
—
"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."
— 2021 September 22, Stephen Roberts, “The writings on the wall...”, in RAIL, number 940, page 74:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Despite his strict diet, he had a ____ for eating chocolate every night.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She had a ____ for collecting vintage maps and had covered every wall of her study with them.