Penchant

verb

A strong, characteristic predisposition to enjoy something or behave in a certain way

Usage

While most of us need to work hard to master something like playing an instrument or speaking another language, some people just seem to have a natural bent for such skills. Sure, they might need a little practice in the beginning to grasp their piano chords or learn Spanish verb conjugations, but excellence simply comes much faster or more facilely to them. It's not that these people were born with superhuman skills; they're just lucky enough to have strong bents and tastes for doing things that form an inherent part of their personalities. Their likings or habits, which might result from an intense interest or come from a mind that's naturally geared for the skill in question, are excellent examples of penchants.

A penchant is best described as a strong, often idiosyncratic inclination for something. Sometimes, this inclination might be for a specific object, referring to something that a person really enjoys or often partakes in - for instance, if you find yourself reading lots of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, you could be said to have a penchant for Russian literature. In these cases, a penchant can be thought of as a distinct part of a person's identity. It's something that a person simply gravitates towards, a preference that, given the opportunity, will almost always be chosen. On the other hand, though, people can also have penchants for specific actions or skills. In these situations, use of the word often indicates either a special talent or knack - something a person is really, really, really good at - or an ingrained habit, something a person does over and over again. Of course, if natural ability means you have a penchant for something, there's a good chance you'll want to do it as much as possible. So, someone with a penchant for shoveling snow might either be really efficient at doing an annoying chore or actually really enjoy the task, or both!

A penchant is generally phrased as something that's possessed by someone; it's something you have or own. Furthermore, it's usually followed by a prepositional phrase starting with the word for. This means that when you're looking to use the word penchant, you'll likely apply it in the following pattern: (Subject) has a penchant for (object of preposition).

Example: Since our dad has a penchant for seafood, we take him out for a lobster dinner every year on his birthday.

Example: Dana's penchant for caring for animals made her the perfect pet-sitter.

Example: Knowing that her son had a penchant for tracking dirt in the house, Christine always kept a broom by the door.

Origin

Doesn't penchant look awfully like another, familiar word - pendant? Though the two terms mean very different things in English, their similar appearance is due to their shared origin in the Latin verb pendere, which means "to hang or suspend" (pendere is the origin of pend, which serves as the root of a slew of words like pendulum, suspend, and depend).

Pendere would inspire the Old French word pencher, meaning "to incline or slant." The present participle of pencher would be form-shifted to create the French noun penchant (an analogy for this change would be how we get the noun phrase a liking from the verb like). Although the pronunciation differs, the French penchant is a direct cognate of the English word, the first uses of which are attributed to the late 17th century.

Similar Words

If you're finding yourself repeating the word penchant too much (hard to imagine, we know), you might consider changing things up with a word like proclivity, predilection, or predisposition. All three of these words mean nearly the same thing as penchant, describing a liking or inclination for something that forms a key aspect of someone's personality. One minor nuance you might consider is that the root pre of both predilection and predisposition might indicate a preference that has arisen as a result of some past incident, as opposed to something a person is born with (think a person who has had a predisposition for walking ever since getting into a car accident years ago). Proclivity sometimes gets used to indicate tendencies for negative things (e.g. "proclivity for overthinking" or "proclivity for violence"). These distinctions are far from absolute, though, as penchant, predilection, predisposition and proclivity are frequently used interchangeably.

In Literature

From Jack London's The Sea Wolf:

Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose upon the dead man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lips in a continuous stream…I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could I have conceived it possible. With a turn for literary expression myself, and a penchant for forcible figures and phrases, I appreciated, as no other listener, I dare say, the peculiar vividness and strength and absolute blasphemy of his metaphors.

Here, penchant refers to the narrator's self-described taste for using strong words. The fact that, despite having this penchant, the narrator is still shocked by the captain's diatribe highlights just how salty the latter's language is.

Mnemonic

You have a penchant for something that enchants you
If you have a penchant for writing, then your pen chants!