PROPENSITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does propensity mean? 

• PROPENSITY (noun)
  The noun PROPENSITY has 3 senses:

1. an inclination to do something

2. a natural inclination

3. a disposition to behave in a certain way

  Familiarity information: PROPENSITY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROPENSITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An inclination to do something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

leaning; propensity; tendency

Context example:

he felt leanings toward frivolity

Hypernyms ("propensity" is a kind of...):

inclination (that toward which you are inclined to feel a liking)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A natural inclination

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

leaning; proclivity; propensity

Context example:

he has a proclivity for exaggeration

Hypernyms ("propensity" is a kind of...):

disposition; inclination; tendency (an attitude of mind especially one that favors one alternative over others)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A disposition to behave in a certain way

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

aptness; propensity

Context example:

the propensity of disease to spread

Hypernyms ("propensity" is a kind of...):

disposition (a natural or acquired habit or characteristic tendency in a person or thing)

 Context examples 

This pattern emerges as a result of a defect in ion channel genes, resulting in atypical electrophysiological activity in the right ventricle and a propensity for malignant tachyarrhythmias.

(Brugada Syndrome Ventricular Arrhythmia by ECG Finding, NCI Thesaurus)

Importantly, they have discovered that the urge to yawn -our propensity for contagious yawning- is individual to each one of us.

(Why Is Yawning so Contagious?, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Compared to unmodified bouganins, modified bouganins may have a reduced propensity to activate human T cells.

(Citatuzumab Bogatox, NCI Thesaurus)

Such were her propensities—her abilities were quite as extraordinary.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Because of rapid growth and a high propensity for hemorrhage, this neoplasm often constitutes a medical emergency. —2004

(Gestational Choriocarcinoma, NCI Thesaurus)

But of his minuter propensities, as you call them you have from peculiar circumstances been kept more ignorant than myself.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled, a more furious propensity to ill.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

For now I could no longer deny that I was a real Yahoo in every limb and feature, since the females had a natural propensity to me, as one of their own species.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

This relationship means that low and high scores obtained in such personality traits are respectively linked to lower or higher propensities to make humorous comments aimed at building and strengthening social relationships.

(Self-defeating humour promotes psychological well-being, University of Granada)

But the figures had the old obstinate propensity—they WOULD NOT add up.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)