penchant

What it means

1. countableuncountableA taste, liking, or inclination for (something).

   He has a penchant for fine wine.

   4 more examples

   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

2. uncountablecard gamesA card game resembling bezique.
3. countableuncountablecard gamesIn the game of penchant, any queen and jack of different suits held at the same time.

In a sentence

He has a penchant for fine wine.

Where it comes from

1. Latinpendere“to hang”
2. Old Frenchpengier“to tilt, be out of line”
3. Frenchpenchant
4. Englishpenchant

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”).