prepossession

plural prepossessions

1. uncountableA preoccupation; having possession beforehand.

   It opens his designs to his family, it introduces you among them, it diffuses through the party those pleasantest feelings of our nature, eager curiosity and warm prepossession.

   1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC

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   I am fully sensible to the greatness of that freedom, which I take with you on the present occasion; a liberty which seemed to me scarcely allowable, when I reflected on that distinguished and dignified station in which you stand, and the almost general prejudice and prepossession, which is so prevalent in the world against those of my complexion.

   1791 August 19, letter from Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson

2. countableA preconceived opinion, or previous impression; bias, prejudice.

   The spontaneous intellect of man always defines the divine which it feels in ways that harmonise with its temporary intellectual prepossessions.

   1902, William James, “Lecture XVIII: Philosophy”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature […] , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 455