PASSION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Passion mean? 

• PASSION (noun)
  The noun PASSION has 7 senses:

1. a strong feeling or emotion

2. the trait of being intensely emotional

3. something that is desired intensely

4. an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action

5. a feeling of strong sexual desire

6. any object of warm affection or devotion

7. the suffering of Jesus at the Crucifixion

  Familiarity information: PASSION used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PASSION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A strong feeling or emotion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

passion; passionateness

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

feeling (the experiencing of affective and emotional states)

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

infatuation (a foolish and usually extravagant passion or love or admiration)

abandon; wildness (a feeling of extreme emotional intensity)

ardor; ardour; fervency; fervidness; fervor; fervour; fire (feelings of great warmth and intensity)

storminess (violent passion in speech or action)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The trait of being intensely emotional

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

heat; passion; warmth

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

emotionalism; emotionality (emotional nature or quality)

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

fieriness (a passionate and quick-tempered nature)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Something that is desired intensely

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

passion; rage

Context example:

his rage for fame destroyed him

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

desire (something that is desired)

Sense 4

Meaning:

An irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action

Classified under:

Nouns denoting goals

Synonyms:

cacoethes; mania; passion

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

irrational motive (a motivation that is inconsistent with reason or logic)

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

agromania (an intense desire to be alone or out in the open)

alcoholism; dipsomania; potomania (an intense persistent desire to drink alcoholic beverages to excess)

egomania (an intense and irresistible love for yourself and concern for your own needs)

kleptomania (an irresistible impulse to steal in the absence of any economic motive)

logomania; logorrhea (pathologically excessive (and often incoherent) talking)

monomania; possession (a mania restricted to one thing or idea)

necromania; necrophilia; necrophilism (an irresistible sexual attraction to dead bodies)

phaneromania (an irresistible desire to pick at superficial body parts (as in obsessive nail-biting))

pyromania (an uncontrollable desire to set fire to things)

trichotillomania (an irresistible urge to pull out your own hair)

Sense 5

Meaning:

A feeling of strong sexual desire

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

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

concupiscence; eros; physical attraction; sexual desire (a desire for sexual intimacy)

Sense 6

Meaning:

Any object of warm affection or devotion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

love; passion

Context example:

he has a passion for cock fighting

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

object (the focus of cognitions or feelings)

Sense 7

Meaning:

The suffering of Jesus at the Crucifixion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

Passion; Passion of Christ

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

agony; excruciation; suffering (a state of acute pain)

 Context examples 

I have seen passion in many forms, but I have never seen it in such a form as that.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Unlike some sufferers, he never spoke of his unrequited passion, and would allow no one, not even Mrs. March, to attempt consolation or offer sympathy.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

In passion to rend and destroy, he never forgot that his enemy was in like passion to rend and destroy.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

"Heavens and earth, no!" cried Arthur in a storm of passion.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

My evil passions will have fled, for I shall meet with sympathy!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Guest’s eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and studied it with passion.

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

The witch fell into a passion, let him fall again into the well, and went away.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

It has been two years since you’ve had Mars in your sign, and now that the red planet is ready to help you, you’ll push forward with passion.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Seeing that his passion was becoming ungovernable, I left him and returned towards Hatherley Farm.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)