penchant
/ˈpɛnt͡ʃənt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.07 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
In the game of penchant, any queen and jack of different suits held at the same time.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "He has a penchant for fine wine."
- "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."
- "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"
- "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."
Etymology
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”).
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈpɛnt͡ʃənt/
- British English: /ˈpɒnʃɒn/