penchant

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
15
Words With Friends
18
Letters
8
Pronunciation
/ˈpɒnʃɒn/(UK)
See all 4 pronunciations
/ˈpɒnʃɒn/(UK) · [ˈpɑ̃ʃɑ̃](UK) · /ˈpɛnt͡ʃənt/(UK) · /ˈpɛnt͡ʃənt/(US)

Definition of penchant

3 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)Taste, liking, or inclination (for).
    “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.”
See all 3 definitions

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)Taste, liking, or inclination (for).
    “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.”
  2. (uncountable)A card game resembling bezique.
  3. (countable, uncountable)In the game of penchant, any queen and jack of different suits held at the same time.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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”).

Words you can make from penchant

132 playable · top: HEPCAT (13 pts)

Best play hepcat 13 points

7-letter words

1 word

6-letter words

2 words

5-letter words

23 words

4-letter words

47 words

3-letter words

43 words

2-letter words

15 words

Hooks

1 extension · 1 back

A single letter you can add to penchant to make another valid word.

Find your best play with penchant

See every word you can make from a set of letters that includes penchant, or browse word lists you can mine for high-scoring plays.