An emotional or personal fancy is a capricious liking formed with slight reason and no exercise of judgment, and liable to fade as lightly as it was formed.

J. C. Fernald, English Synonyms and Antonyms (1914)

Example sentences

taste My wife's taste in clothes is different from mine.
preference Have you got any preference between beef and lamb?
fondness He has a morbid fondness for murder mysteries.
predilection She always had a predilection for round numbers.
desire It is true that we desire to live in a small town.
leaning Ziri was leaning his back on a tree, arms crossed.

Popularity over time

Word	1850 → 2019	Trend
liking		rising
taste		rising
preference		steady
fondness		rising
predilection		steady
desire		rising

Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.

By length

4 letters: love¹, mind¹, turn¹, wish¹, bias², bent¹, lust¹, gust¹
5 letters: taste¹, fancy², shine¹, gusto²
6 letters: desire³, regard², relish²
7 letters: leaning², aptness
8 letters: pleasure², tendency³, appetite³, affinity⁴, aptitude³, fondness², penchant²
9 letters: affection³, proneness, appetency
10 letters: preference³, attachment³, admiration⁴, propensity⁴, proclivity⁴, partiality⁵
11 letters: disposition⁴, inclination⁴, approbation⁴
12 letters: predilection⁴
14 letters: predisposition⁵

The small number after each word is its number of syllables (bias² = 2 syllables).