PREPOSSESS • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Prepossess

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

verb

Prepossess v. t. (past & past part. prepossessed; pres. part. prepossessing)

To preoccupy, as ground or land; to take previous possession of.

To preoccupy, as the mind or heart, so as to preclude other things; hence, to bias or prejudice; to give a previous inclination to, for or against anything; esp., to induce a favorable opinion beforehand, or at the outset. "It created him enemies, and prepossessed the lord general."

See images of 'Prepossess'

Etymology of 'Prepossess'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Prepossess" Quotes from Famous Books

... Therefore, it is Iphicrates who will profit by all I can invent, and as his ambition will owe everything to me, our future is sure. I will go and take my time to confirm the princess in her error, and, the better to prepossess her mind, skilfully show her the agreement of the words of Venus with the predictions of the celestial signs which I told her I have cast. Be it your part to go and get our six men to hide themselves carefully in their boat behind the rock, and make them wait quietly for the time when the princess ...

— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere

... his practical ingenuity in getting the boat off a dam, and perhaps still more signally in quieting some restive hogs by the simple expedient of sewing up their eyes. In the first trip the great emancipator came in contact with the negro in a way that did not seem likely to prepossess him in favour of the race. The boat was boarded by negro robbers, who were repulsed only after a fray in which Abe got a scar which he carried to the grave. But he saw with his own eyes slaves manacled and whipped at New Orleans; and though his sympathies were not far-reaching, the actual sight ...

— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... this state, and while he was doggedly conscious that his association with Jim did not prepossess Mrs. Peyton or her brother in his favor, and that the former even believed him responsible for Susy's unhallowed acquaintance with Jim, that he drifted into one of those youthful escapades on which elders are apt to sit in severe but not ...

— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... at ease, And 'twas agreed the lucky thought to seize That like a chambermaid he should be dress'd, And then proceed to execute the jest, Attend upon the wily, wedded pair, And offer services with modest air And downcast eyes; the husband on her leer'd, And in her favour prepossess'd appear'd, In hopes one day, to find those pleasing charms Resign'd in secret to his longing arms. Such pretty cheeks and sparkling eyes he thought, Had ne'er till then his roving fancy caught; ...

— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... the first something so engaging, so obliging, that you feel attracted towards them as towards a friend, whilst an air of unbecoming haughtiness gives to the second a dark, forbidding countenance which certainly does not prepossess in their favour. Yet I have often been duped by Frenchmen, and never by Spaniards—a proof that we ought ...

— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

More quotes...