take a fancy to

Idioms

Also,. Be attracted to someone or something, as in They took a fancy to spicy foods after their Mexican vacation, or I'm hoping he'll take a liking to the water, now that we have a cottage on a lake, or We think Bill's taken a shine to Betsy. The first term was first recorded in 1541, the first variant in 1570, and the last, a colloquialism, in 1850.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Why anybody—even a girl—would take a fancy to a doll was beyond me, but this one was something special.

From Literature

“Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy to me. But she couldn’t,—at all events, she didn’t.”

From Literature

“Maybe not. Only the Lord knows about that. Come into the house before they take a fancy to you. Who knows what Mr. Heron’s told them about your brother.”

From Literature

He would take a fancy to a person for no reason, and be friendly one day perhaps and sullen the next.

From Literature

A consortium partly led by the private equity arm of Standard Chartered PLC has invested $207 million in China's Dianrong.com, the peer-to-peer online lender said on Thursday, the latest international investor to take a fancy to the firm.

From Reuters

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023