# favourite

Pronunciation: say "FAYV-rit" /ˈfeɪv.ɹɪt/

## Adjective

1. Liked more than others of the same kind, whether best of all or among those someone likes best.
   - Simple: Liked more than all, or most, other things or people of the same kind.
   - _Her favourite part of the holiday was the boat trip to the island._
   - _That café on the high street is one of my favourite places to meet friends._

## Noun

2. A person or thing liked more than others of the same kind, or treated with special favour, as a parent's or a monarch's favourite.
   - Simple: A person or thing that someone likes more than others, often treating them better.
   - _Being the youngest, Amy was her father's favourite and was hardly ever told off._
   - _The lemon cake has been a firm favourite with customers since the café opened._
3. The competitor or entrant regarded as the likeliest winner of a race, match or contest.
   - Simple: The one in a race or contest that people think will most likely win.
   - _The grey mare started as the 3-1 favourite but faded badly in the last furlong._
   - _France went into the tournament as one of the favourites but were knocked out in the quarter-finals._
4. A bookmark: a saved link that lets a user return to a page, kept in a web browser or on a website.
   - Simple: A link you save in a web browser or on a website so you can find a page again.
   - _Her favourites bar was crammed with links to news sites and online shops._
   - _Save the bus timetable as a favourite and you can open it with one tap._

## Verb

5. To add an item to the personal list of favourites that a website lets its users keep; also, to bookmark a page.
   - Simple: To save something on a website or in a browser as one of your favourites.
   - _Users can favourite a listing and get an alert when its price drops._
   - _Thousands of people favourited his post within an hour of it going up._

## Other meanings

- (noun) Short curls of hair left dangling over the temples, a fashion during the reign of Charles II.

## Origin

English first recorded the word in the 1580s, borrowing Middle French favorit, from Italian favorito (“favoured, favourite”). Favorito is the past participle of favorire (“to favour”), formed from favore, which goes back to Latin favor (“goodwill, favour”), from faveō (“I favour”).

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/favourite (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).