Other forms: passions
Passion is a burning love for a person or an activity. A passion for music, speak with passion, her great passion.
It covers romantic intensity and enthusiasm equally, and a passion is a countable thing you can have several of: cooking is one of his passions. The religious sense is capitalised and specific: the Passion means the suffering of Christ, and Bach's Passions are settings of it. That is the original meaning and it explains the root. Note passionate, which is used of both love and belief, and dispassionate, which means calmly impartial.
1nounpassionVery strong feeling, especially of love.
“There was passion in the argument on both sides.”
2nounenthusiasmA strong enthusiasm for something.
“Cycling has been his passion since he was twelve.”
3nounchristianityIn Christianity, the suffering of Christ.
“The Passion is read on Good Friday.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
passion is an intense feeling.
Latin passio meant suffering, from pati, to suffer — the same root as patient and compatible. Passion meant suffering for a thousand years before it meant desire, and the shift came from the idea of being overwhelmed by a feeling rather than choosing it.
Proto-Indo-European
*peh₁-
Middle English
passioun
English, today
passion
Built from
From Middle English passioun. From Middle English passioun, passion, from Old French passion (and in part from Old English passion), from Latin passio (“suffering”), noun of action from perfect passive participle passus (“suffered”), from deponent verb patior (“to suffer”), from Proto-Indo-European peh₁- (“to hurt”), see also Old English fēond (“devil, enemy”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌰𐌽 (“to blame”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA