prepossessing
English
Adjective
prepossessing (comparative more prepossessing, superlative most prepossessing)
- Tending to invite favor; attracting confidence, favor, esteem, or love; attractive
- a prepossessing manner
- 1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume II, chapter 15:
- "I am a great advocate for timidity—and I am sure one does not often meet with it.—But in those who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing."
- 1836, “Boz” [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “The curate. The old lady. The half-pay captain”, in Sketches by “Boz,” Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Macrone, […], OCLC 912950347:
- Our curate is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance, and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half, desponding with love.
- 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chapter 2
- These natural graces in the quadroon are often united with beauty of the most dazzling kind, and in almost every case with a personal appearance prepossessing and agreeable.
- 1931, H. P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer in Darkness, chapter 3:
- He was a frank, prepossessing fellow, but I saw that he could add nothing to his original account.
- 1944 January and February, E. R. McCarter, “The Cairn Valley Light Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 48:
- The stations are generally very poor, even for a branch line; some are mere wooden shacks, and Moniaive itself is one of the least prepossessing terminal stations I have ever seen.
- (archaic) Causing prejudice.
Translations
tending to invite favour; attractive
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References
- prepossessing in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913