Other forms: appetites
Appetite is the wish to eat. Lose your appetite, a healthy appetite, appetite for risk.
It is not the same as hunger: hunger is the body's need and appetite is the desire, which is why you can have one without the other and why illness kills appetite first. Figuratively it means willingness — no appetite for another war. Note that the Latin means striving after, from petere, to seek.
1nounappetiteThe wish to eat.
“Being ill, she had lost her appetite and ate almost nothing.”
2nounwillingnessWillingness for something.
“There's little appetite among voters for another election this year.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
appetite is a desire.
Latin appetitus comes from appetere, to strive after — ad plus petere, to seek. Petition and compete come from the same seeking.
Proto-Indo-European
*peth₂-
Latin
appetitus
Old French
apetit
Middle English
appetit
English, today
appetite
Built from
From Middle English appetit, from Old French apetit (French appétit), from Latin appetitus, from appeto (“to strive after, long for”); ad + peto (“to seek”). See petition, and compare with appetence.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA