penchant

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”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɒnʃɒn/, [ˈpɑ̃ʃɑ̃]

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛnt͡ʃənt/
• Rhymes: -ɒnʃɒn, -ɛntʃənt

penchant (countable and uncountable, plural penchants)

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

   He has a penchant for fine wine.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 264:

     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.

   • 1960 October, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 640:

     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.

   • 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

   • 2021 September 22, Stephen Roberts, “The writings on the wall...”, in RAIL, number 940, page 74:

     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.

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.

• desire, see also Thesaurus:predilection

penchant m (plural penchants)

1. penchant

penchant

1. present participle of pencher

• “penchant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.