APPETENCY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Appetency

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noun

Appetency n. (pl. appetencies)

Fixed and strong desire; esp. natural desire; a craving; an eager appetite. "They had a strong appetency for reading."

Specifically: An instinctive inclination or propensity in animals to perform certain actions, as in the young to suck, in aquatic fowls to enter into water and to swim; the tendency of an organized body to seek what satisfies the wants of its organism. "These lacteals have mouths, and by animal selection or appetency the absorb such part of the fluid as is agreeable to their palate."

Natural tendency; affinity; attraction; used of inanimate objects.

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Etymology of 'Appetency'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Appetency" Quotes from Famous Books

... passivity" submitted to the infliction, and with feigned pleasure followed the torturer's voice, delivering page after page of solemn science in polished heroic couplets. At length, in a lull between the lines on Imitation and those on Appetency, the young man mustered courage to broach the subject nearest his heart, by asking the irrelevant question, "You are acquainted, I dare say, with the prominent families of Marietta; do you happen to know a gentleman by the name of Hale? ...

— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... loosen the animal's hold, but in vain. The maternal instinct had awakened all its fierceness, and as the blood commenced to flow in streams from the deep scratches and bites inflicted by its teeth and claws, its ferocious appetency redoubled. It tore and bit as if nothing would appease it but the luckless victim's death. Mrs. Page would doubtless have fallen a prey to its savage rage, but for a happy thought which flashed across her mind ...

— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

Words linked to "Appetency" : appetite, appetent, sweet tooth, stomach, craving