disposition
[dis-puh-zish-uhn]
- the predominant or prevailing tendency of one's spirits; natural mental and emotional outlook or mood; characteristic attitude: a girl with a pleasant disposition.
- state of mind regarding something; inclination: a disposition to gamble.
- physical inclination or tendency: the disposition of ice to melt when heated.
- arrangement or placing, as of troops or buildings.
- final settlement of a matter.
- bestowal, as by gift or sale.
- power to make decisions about or dispose of a thing; control: funds at one's disposition.
- regulation; management; dispensation: the disposition of God.
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Origin of disposition
Synonyms
Synonym study
1. Disposition, temper, temperament refer to the aspects and habits of mind and emotion that one displays over a length of time. Disposition is the natural or prevailing aspect of one's mind as shown in behavior and in relationships with others: a happy disposition; a selfish disposition. Temper sometimes denotes the essential quality of one's nature: a glacial temper; usually it has to do with propensity toward anger: an even temper; a quick or hot temper. Temperament refers to the particular balance of emotions determining a person's character: an artistic temperament.
Antonyms
2. unwillingness.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for dispositional
Contemporary Examples
But since Conor focuses more on the positive attributes of “dispositional” religion, I want to give most of my attention to that.
Olsen divides GOP primary voters into two camps—“dispositional conservatives” and “ideological conservatives.”
Historical Examples
The one etiological group then becomes split up into two which may be designated as the dispositional and the definitive groups.
Three Contributions to the Theory of SexSigmund Freud
disposition
- a person's usual temperament or frame of mind
- a natural or acquired tendency, inclination, or habit in a person or thing
- another word for disposal (def. 2), disposal (def. 3), disposal (def. 4), disposal (def. 5)
- philosophy logic a property that consists not in the present state of an object, but in its propensity to change in a certain way under certain conditions, as brittleness which consists in the propensity to break when struckCompare occurrent
- archaic manner of placing or arranging
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for dispositional
disposition
n.
late 14c., "ordering, management," also "tendency of mind," from Old French disposicion (12c.) "arrangement, order; mood, state of mind," from Latin dispositionem (nominative dispositio) "arrangement, management," noun of action from past participle stem of disponere "to put in order, arrange" (see dispose). References to "temperament" (late 14c. in English) are from astrological use of the word for "position of a planet as a determining influence."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper