A disposition to behave in a certain way

Usage examples of propensity.

But after the dread feeling of worry and want was finally eradicated from his mind by the abolition of the individual accumulative system, he then began to apply himself carefully to physical development, and as running, jumping and acrobatic work have the best symmetrical effects upon the human form, this kind of exercise was extensively followed, and as each generation succeeded in outdoing the feats of the preceding one, the entire nation finally evolved into one of extraordinary springing propensities.

As acute suppression of the menses is due to derangement of the circulation of the blood, caused by taking cold, by violent excitement of the propensities or excessively strong emotional experience, the prominent indication is to secure its speedy equalization.

This prince was in the twenty-third year of his age, was of an agreeable figure, of a mild and gentle disposition, and having never discovered a propensity to any dangerous vice, it was natural to prognosticate tranquillity and happiness from his government.

These recessionary days, the lavish excesses of Las Vegas-style bad taste had been replaced by the curious Japanese propensity to maladroitly appropriate icons of American pop culture.

Yet in the indulgence of a propensity so truly classical, it is not to be supposed that the restaurateur would lose sight of that intuitive discrimination which was wont to characterize, at one and the same time, his essais and his omelettes.

His brother, the late King Edward, had instituted a system of scurriers and spy networks which had kept him well informed as to the propensities of those about him at court, within the realm at large and overseas.

The Scotchman was glad of the chance of gleaning some information about his shipwrecked countryman, while the Patagonian hardly cared to encounter the nomadic Indians of the prairie, knowing their bandit propensities.

Horsethief Shorty was a boozing, tall-story upstart with a propensity for never making the same mistake twice.

This propensity for being generous and openhanded came from his having been a soldier in his youth, for soldiering is a school where the stingy man becomes liberal, and the liberal man becomes prodigal, and if there are any soldiers who are miserly, they are, like monsters, very rarely seen.

Reynard, still undismayed, demanded with well-feigned indignation whether he was to be held responsible for the sins of those messengers whose misfortunes were attributable to their gluttonous and thievish propensities only.

There is a general human propensity, of which much use is made in the Discworld books, to set up accepted, unexamined mental backgrounds.

Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article IV, General Provisions, Section 8, Paragraph D: Non-Caucasian individuals, due to their propensity for engaging in crimes against both person and property, are not allowed to reside or stay within the boundaries of Bonita Vista.

North Carolinian propensity for modesty and sobriety accounted for the relative delicacy of the reporting.

Their explanation will not be found in the annals of Japan, the triads of the Cymric bards, nor the sagas of Icelandic skalds, but in the propensity of the human mind to attribute its own origin and culture to that white-shining orient where sun, moon, and stars, are daily born in renovated glory, to that fair mother, who, at the cost of her own life, gives light and joy to the world, to the brilliant womb of Aurora, the glowing bosom of the Dawn.

Many JNA officers brought the primitivism and propensity for violence that they began to show from their home regions -- most were from the Dinaric mountains.