A natural or instinctive desire for something; an inherent tendency or inclination.
From Latin 'appetentia' (appetite, desire), formed with the suffix '-cy' which creates nouns from adjectives. Became common in English philosophical and scientific writing during the 17th-18th centuries.
This word appears in evolutionary biology and philosophy when discussing instinctive drives—an organism's 'appetency' for food or reproduction is treated as a fundamental biological inclination, not a learned preference.
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