Fondness is a quiet, steady liking built over time. A fondness for cats, look on with fondness, growing fondness.
It is warmer than liking and cooler than love, and it takes for when the object is named. It carries time in it — you develop a fondness rather than feeling one at once. Fond once meant foolish, which is why fondness first meant infatuation.
1nounfondnessA quiet, steady liking built over time.
“He has a fondness for old films, especially black-and-white comedies.”
fondness is a liking.
From fond, which first meant foolish, from Middle English fonned, from fon, a fool.
Middle English
fondnes
English, today
fondness
From Middle English fondnes, fondnesse, fonnednesse, equivalent to fond + -ness.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA