PARTIALITY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does partiality mean? 

• PARTIALITY (noun)
  The noun PARTIALITY has 2 senses:

1. a predisposition to like something

2. an inclination to favor one group or view or opinion over alternatives

  Familiarity information: PARTIALITY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PARTIALITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A predisposition to like something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

fancy; fondness; partiality

Context example:

she had dismissed him quite brutally, relegating him to the status of a passing fancy, or less

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

liking (a feeling of pleasure and enjoyment)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An inclination to favor one group or view or opinion over alternatives

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

partiality; partisanship

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

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

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "partiality"):

anthropocentricity; anthropocentrism (an inclination to evaluate reality exclusively in terms of human values)

ethnocentrism (belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group)

Eurocentrism (belief in the preeminence of Europe and the Europeans)

bias; preconception; prejudice (a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation)

tilt (a slight but noticeable partiality)

localism; provincialism; sectionalism (a partiality for some particular place)

unfairness (partiality that is not fair or equitable)

Antonym:

impartiality (an inclination to weigh both views or opinions equally)

Derivation:

partial (showing favoritism)

 Context examples 

I do not trust my own partiality.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Colonel Brandon's partiality for Marianne, which had so early been discovered by his friends, now first became perceptible to Elinor, when it ceased to be noticed by them.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I remember saying to myself, 'Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will think this a good match.'

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I feel that I have betrayed myself perpetually—so unguarded in speaking of my partiality for the church!

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

For, indeed, who is there alive that will not be swayed by his bias and partiality to the place of his birth?

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

“Oh! That's your partiality!” laughed Traddles.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Anne could think of no one so likely to have spoken with partiality of her many years ago as the Mr Wentworth of Monkford, Captain Wentworth's brother.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

If she is, as you believe, innocent, rely on the justice of our laws, and the activity with which I shall prevent the slightest shadow of partiality.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

With all your partiality for Cottager's wife, said Henry Crawford, it will be impossible to make anything of it fit for your sister, and we must not suffer her good-nature to be imposed on.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)