Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An innate inclination; a tendency. See Synonyms at predilection.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A bent of mind, natural or acquired; inclination; natural tendency; disposition to anything good or evil, particularly to evil: as, a propensity to gamble.
- n. Synonyms Bias, Inclination, etc. See bent.
Wiktionary
- n. A tendency, preference, or attraction.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality or state of being propense; natural inclination; disposition to do good or evil; bias; bent; tendency.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a disposition to behave in a certain way
- n. a natural inclination
- n. an inclination to do something
Etymologies
- From propense, inclined, from Latin prōpēnsus, past participle of prōpendēre, to be inclined; see propend. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“But this propensity is already here, in embryonic form.”
“Appearing before an audience at the University of New Mexico that cheered at virtually every jibe at Obama, McCain unloaded on his Democratic rival for everything from what he called his propensity to raise taxes and desire to impose a government-run health care system to his purported waffling on issues and his "eager" participation in a "corrupt" earmark system.”
“On page 22, we are told that the division of labor “is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature … the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.””
“Google hit #5 for darwin propensity for violence, lust for power lord of the flies.”
“For example, a consumer with an average long-term propensity to plan for money expect to pay nearly $20,000 more over the course of a 30-year mortgage on a”
“Flesch tells us that "narratives tend to contain or at least to suggest the possibility of three basic figures (though there may be more or fewer than three characters who ‘instantiate’ them): an innocent, someone who exploits that innocent, and someone else who seeks to punish the exploiter … The biological origin of this propensity is part of what has come to be called the" evolution of cooperation. "which provides the insights that are central to this book.”
“$200,000 home than a consumer who has a very long-term propensity to plan for money.”
“Bandwagon is a term that refers to the propensity of one person to believe something just because whole bunches of other people do.”
The Huffington Post: Dr. Gregory Jantz, Ph.D.: Just Say No to...Vitamins?
“Each respondent is assigned what's called a propensity score, which attempts to measure how much they are over - or under-represented in online panels.”
The Wall Street Journal: Marriage-Maker Claims Are Tied in Knots
“Aggravating this propensity was the fact that she rarely thought anything through for herself, reacting to events and others with an adolescent disregard for how others perceived her, or for the political consequences of her flights of fancy.”
Framing Romantic Dress: Mary Robinson, Princess Caroline and the Sex/Text
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘propensity’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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@vcb.etym.prjct - SAT WORD DUMP - as ...
The words on this list SAT regulars that I haven't sorted and grouped yet. It's like my wordy holding pen. get it? holding the pen to write a word? HA! I love how lame my humor is.
iconoclast, glacial, agnostic, histrionic, treacly, contemptuous, captious, bombastic, bombast, perfidy, quiescence, sordid and 148 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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2nd part
prelude, ample, escalate, prototype, accession, acquisition, archives, zealot, indict, verdict, intimidating, timid and 454 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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P
letters starting with p
predicament, presumptuous, predilection, plausible, preeminent, plaintive, paragon, partisan, pathological, paucity, pedantic, penchant and 28 more...
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 483 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1834 more...
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Barron's 1100 words you need to know ...
abjure, allay, complacent, connoisseur, debilitate, deter, discreet, evanescent, foment, glean, impetuous, occult and 8 more...
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My preparation
for GRE ofcourse
exonerate, incipient, disparate, morbid, engross, ebullient, predilection, propensity, allure, qualms, chastise, perpetuate and 111 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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The New Yorker
prejudice, ignominious, quintessence, disparity, vanguard, repudiated, eclectic, dredge, taxonomy, pugnacious, surreptitiously, pudgy and 113 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for propensity.
Kristianto2010 Solomon observed mankind’s propensity (kecenderungan) for evil, describing it as those who “rejoice in doing evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked”. ODB July 20, 2011. Jul 19, 2011
Sydney Newhall "Apparently, he had a propensity for violent." The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel pg 9 Oct 3, 2010
Telofy "Self-restraint is indulgence of the propensity to forgo." -- Ambrose Bierce
Edit:
According to wikiquote it's:
"Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forgo." Sep 24, 2008
milosrdenstvi Remarkably similar to a proclivity. Aug 15, 2008