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passion
(redirected from Passions)

   Also found in: Medical, Legal, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
pas·sion  (pshn)
n.
1. A powerful emotion, such as love, joy, hatred, or anger.
2.
a. Ardent love.
b. Strong sexual desire; lust.
c. The object of such love or desire.
3.
a. Boundless enthusiasm: His skills as a player don't quite match his passion for the game.
b. The object of such enthusiasm: Soccer is her passion.
4. An abandoned display of emotion, especially of anger: He's been known to fly into a passion without warning.
5. Passion
a. The sufferings of Jesus in the period following the Last Supper and including the Crucifixion, as related in the New Testament.
b. A narrative, musical setting, or pictorial representation of Jesus's sufferings.
6. Archaic Martyrdom.
7. Archaic Passivity.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin passi, passin-, sufferings of Jesus or a martyr, from Late Latin, physical suffering, martyrdom, sinful desire, from Latin, an undergoing, from passus, past participle of pat, to suffer; see p(i)- in Indo-European roots.]
Synonyms: passion, fervor, fire, zeal, ardor
These nouns denote powerful, intense emotion. Passion is a deep, overwhelming emotion: "There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy" (Richard Brinsley Sheridan).
The term may signify sexual desire or anger: "He flew into a violent passion and abused me mercilessly" (H.G. Wells).
Fervor is great warmth and intensity of feeling: "The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal" (William James).
Fire is burning passion: "In our youth our hearts were touched with fire" (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.)
Zeal is strong, enthusiastic devotion to a cause, ideal, or goal and tireless diligence in its furtherance: "Laurie [resolved], with a glow of philanthropic zeal, to found and endow an institution for ... women with artistic tendencies" (Louisa May Alcott).
Ardor is fiery intensity of feeling: "the furious ardor of my zeal repressed" (Charles Churchill). See Also Synonyms at feeling.

passion [ˈpæʃən]
n
1. ardent love or affection
2. intense sexual love
3. a strong affection or enthusiasm for an object, concept, etc. a passion for poetry
4. any strongly felt emotion, such as love, hate, envy, etc.
5. a state or outburst of extreme anger he flew into a passion
6. the object of an intense desire, ardent affection, or enthusiasm
7. an outburst expressing intense emotion he burst into a passion of sobs
8. (Philosophy) Philosophy
a.  any state of the mind in which it is affected by something external, such as perception, desire, etc., as contrasted with action
b.  feelings, desires or emotions, as contrasted with reason
9. (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) the sufferings and death of a Christian martyr
[via French from Church Latin passiō suffering, from Latin patī to suffer]

Passion [ˈpæʃən]
n
1. (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) the sufferings of Christ from the Last Supper to his death on the cross
2. (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) any of the four Gospel accounts of this
3. (Music, other) (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) a musical setting of this the St Matthew Passion

Passion 

See Also: DESIRE, LOVE, SEX

  1. As passionate as shredded wheat —Lawrence Gilman
  2. The echoes of passion in the emptiness of a lonely heart is like the murmurings of wind and water in the silence of the wilderness —Francois Rene de Chateaubriand
  3. Genuine passion is like a mountain stream; it admits of no impediment; it cannot go backward; it must go forward —Christian Nestell Bovee
  4. Hot as a forty-balled tomcat —Rita Mae Brown
  5. Instant passion is like instant coffee; it’s cheap and it’s quick and it makes you wish you had a percolator —Carla Lane, dialogue for heroine of English television sit-com “Solo,” broadcast April 7, 1987
  6. Our passions are in truth, like the phoenix. The old one burns away, the new one rises out of its ashes at once —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  7. Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after —Jonathan Swift
  8. Our world passions are like so many lawyers wrangling and brawling at a bar —Owen Feltham

    The comparison continues as follows: “Discretion is the lord-keeper of man that sits as judge, and moderation their contestations.”

  9. The passionate are like men standing on their heads; they see all things the wrong way —Plato
  10. Passionate men, like fleet hounds, are apt to over-run the scent —H. G. Bohn’s Handbook of Proverbs
  11. Passion burned through her like a sunrise —Ellen Glasgow
  12. Passion is like crime; it does not thrive on the established order —Thomas Mann
  13. Passion is like genius: a miracle —Romain Rolland
  14. Passionless as a clam —Gertrude Atherton
  15. Passion … like a fire on the prairie that devours everything around it —W. Somerset Maugham
  16. Passion … like other violent excitements … throws up not only what is best, but what is worst and smallest, in men’s characters —Robert Louis Stevenson
  17. Passions and desires, like the two twists of a rope, mutually mix one with the other, and twine inextricably round the heart —Richard E. Burton
  18. Passions are like fire and water, good servants but bad masters —Alexander Pope
  19. Passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess —Francois due de La Rochefoucauld
  20. Passions are like the trout in a pond: one devours the others until only one fat old trout is left —Otto von Bismarck
  21. A passion that had moved into his body, like a stranger —Arthur Miller
  22. Passion … went over him like an ocean wave —Jean Stafford

    At another point in her novel, The Mountain Lion, Stafford used the ocean waves comparison to describe the powerful smell of flowers.


passion


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