affection

Borrowed from French affection, from Latin affectiōnem, from affectiō; see affect.

• IPA^(key): /əˈfɛkʃən/
• Hyphenation: af‧fec‧tion

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛkʃən

affection (countable and uncountable, plural affections)

1. The act of affecting or acting upon.
2. The state of being affected.
3. An attribute; a quality or property; a condition.
   • Robert Simson

     A Porism is a proposition in which it is proposed to demonstrate that some one thing, or more things than one, are given, to which, as also to each of innumerable other things, not given indeed, but which have the same relation to those which are given, it is to be shewn that there belongs some common affection described in the proposition.

4. An emotion; a feeling or natural impulse acting upon and swaying the mind.
   • 2013 August 23, Mark Cocker, “Wings of Desire”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 11, page 26:

     Our affections for wild animals are distributed very unevenly. Take insects. Some 750,000 species have already been documented worldwide and the great American naturalist EO Wilson called them "the little things that run the world". Through their recycling of nutrients and the supply of base-level protein to a vast array of higher life forms, insects underpin the existence of life on this planet. Yet when it comes to human concern for creepy-crawlies, forget it.

   • 1905, Emanuel Swedenborg, translated by John C. Ager, Heaven and Hell Chapter 27

     It is known that each individual has a variety of affections, one affection when in joy, another when in grief, another when in sympathy and compassion, another when in sincerity and truth, another when in love and charity, another when in zeal or in anger, another when in simulation and deceit, another when in quest of honor and glory, and so on.

5. A feeling of love or strong attachment.
   • 1908, Gorge Bernard Shaw, Getting Married/Spurious "Natural" Affection

     What is more, they are protected from even such discomfort as the dislike of his prisoners may cause to a gaoler by the hypnotism of the convention that the natural relation between husband and wife and parent and child is one of intense affection, and that to feel any other sentiment towards a member of one's family is to be a monster.

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice Chapter 61

     Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her drew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected.

6. (medicine, archaic) Disease; morbid symptom; malady.
   • Dunglison

     a pulmonary affection

   • 1907, The Medical Brief (volume 35, page 840)

     A heavy clay soil is bad for all neuralgics, and the house should be dry, and on a sandy or gravel soil. The desideratum for all neuralgic affections is perpetual summer […]

In the sense of "feeling of love or strong attachment", it is often in the plural; formerly followed by "to", but now more generally by "for" or "toward(s)", for example filial, social, or conjugal affections; to have an affection for or towards children

• (kind feeling): attachment, fondness, kindness, love, passion, tenderness

affection (third-person singular simple present affections, present participle affectioning, simple past and past participle affectioned)

1. to feel an affection, emotion or love for.

• affection at OneLook Dictionary Search
• affection in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• affection in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Borrowed from Latin affectiō, affectiōnem.

• IPA^(key): /a.fɛk.sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

affection f (plural affections)

1. affection, love, fondness
2. medical condition, complaint, disease

• “affection” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

affection (plural affections)

1. affection

• Eagle, Andy, ed. (2016) The Online Scots Dictionary, Scots Online.