passionate
Formspassionates, passionating, passionated
- 1Filled with intense feeling, conviction, or enthusiasm.
Their passionate defense of the proposal won over the entire committee.
She remained passionate about reform throughout her long political career.
Similarfervent, ardent, impassioned, fiery, burning
Oppositeapathetic, indifferent, lukewarm, halfhearted
Note
Heat is the governing image here. Its near-synonyms, ardent, burning, blazing, fervid, fiery and flaming, all picture feeling as fire. Unlike the romantic sense, this one points outward at a cause or conviction, and it readily takes about: passionate about reform, about justice. A passionate defense or plea describes the force of the speaking and carries no romantic overtone.
- 2Inclined to strong feeling, which may be romantic, sexual, or both.
Their relationship was passionate and intense from the very first week.
She wrote passionate verses to the woman she had fallen in love with.
Similarardent, amorous, intense, fiery, romantic
Oppositecold, passionless, unemotional
Note
Medieval Latin passiōnātus already spanned this whole range: "affected, impassioned, libidinous, easily angered." The romantic and sexual coloring has been part of the word from the start. Today context decides which way it leans: a passionate lover or relationship reads romantically, while a passionate speaker does not. The old idea of being "affected," acted upon by feeling, is closest to the obsolete "sorrowful" meaning.
- 3Suffering deeply; weighed down by grief or sorrow.
Poor, forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,
c. 1590, William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”She is sad and passionate at your highness’ tent.
c. 1596, William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”Note
Shakespeare uses the adjective for grief, and modern readers easily misread him. In King John, "sad and passionate at your highness' tent" means mourning. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, "forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus" pairs it with forlorn. Read such lines as sorrowful, not ardent. Because the sense is obsolete, a passionate mourner in modern prose would simply be misunderstood.
Less common meanings
- 4To fill a person with passion, or with another strong emotion.
Oppositedispassionate
Note
The verb is a separate formation: passion plus the verb-forming -ate, parallel to French passionner. Its object is the person moved, and the emotion need not be passion at all. In Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590), it is "great pleasure mixt with pittifull regard" that did passionate the king and queen. The verb is obsolete, and its past form was passionated.
- 5To utter or voice something aloud with great emotion.
Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands / And cannot passionate our tenfold grief / with folded arms.
c. 1588, William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”Note
Here the object is the feeling itself rather than the person moved. In Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, the line "cannot passionate our tenfold grief / with folded arms" is spoken by characters who have lost their hands. The expression meant is bodily, gesture as much as voice. The sense is obsolete and belongs to the reading of such plays, not to modern speech.
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Origins
From Middle English passionat, from Medieval Latin passiōnātus meaning "affected, impassioned, or easily angered." It combines "passion" with the adjective-forming suffix "-ate," and is comparable to French passionné.
Formed from "passion" plus the verb-forming suffix "-ate," and cognate with French passionner.