[ad. L. appetentia, n. of state f. appetent-em: see next and -ENCY.]
1. strictly, The state of longing for, desiring, craving; appetite, passion. But also used as a APPETENCE. Const. of, for, after.
1631. Sanderson, 21 Serm., Ad. Aul. i. (1673), 13. God hath ingrafted in our Nature … an appetency of praise and glory.
1652. Sparke, Prim. Devot. (1663), 502. Vicious concupiscence and all brutish appetencies.
1824. D’Israeli, Cur. Lit. (1866), 205. Fanaticism and robbery … will satiate their appetency for blood and plunder.
1881. Masson, in Macm. Mag., XLV. 74/1. An appetency after literary distinction all but enormous.
2. Instinctive inclination or propensity.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., ix. (1827), 466. That the parts of animals may have been all formed by what is called appetency, i. e. endeavour, perpetuated, and imperceptibly working its effect, through an incalculable series of generations.
1826. Kirby & Spence, Entomol. (1828), III. xxxii. 348. There is no formative appetency in the animals themselves.
3. Of things inanimate: Natural tendency, affinity.
1627. G. Watts, Bacon’s Adv. Learn. (1640), 147. Whoever shall … intentively observe the appetencies of matter.
1831. Brewster, Newton (1855), I. xii. 323. The spherical form of the planets had been ascribed by Copernicus to the gravity or natural appetency of their parts.
1846. Knight’s Cur. Phys. Geog., ad fin. The extraordinary appetency for oxygen of several of these bases.
4. Metaph. Suggested term including both desire and volition, as distinguished from cognition and feeling.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph., xi. (1870), I. 186. The term appetency … comprehending both desires and volitions.
