Fond means holding a warm, lasting liking for somebody or something. Fond of him, fond memories, very fond of walking.
The construction is almost always fond of, and used alone before a noun it means affectionate: a fond farewell, fond memories. It is gentler than love and steadier than like. Fond hope means one held warmly and probably unrealistically, which is a small trace of the word's original meaning. Note fondly, which can mean either affectionately or naively — I fondly imagined it would be simple.
1adjectivefondHaving a warm, lasting liking for somebody or something.
“She was fond of him without ever quite saying so.”
synonyms: affectionate, attached
2adjectiveaffectionateAffectionate, before a noun.
“He has fond memories of a place he visited once.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
fond is a warm liking.
Middle English fond meant foolish, from a verb meaning to be silly. Affection was seen as a kind of foolishness, and the insult softened into a compliment — but fond hope preserves the older sense exactly.
Middle English
fond
English, today
fond
Built from
From Middle English fond, fonned, past participle of fonnen (“to be foolish, be simple, dote”), equivalent to fon + -ed. More at fon.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA