• affection (n.): [...] an emotion, a feeling; esp. feeling as opp. to reason; passion, lust; (adj.): affectional: of or having affections. [Old French, fr. Latin affectio(n-), fr. affect- + -ion]. (Oxford Dictionary).

• affection (n.): [...]. 2. feeling or emotion; often used in the plural; (adj.): affectional; (adv.): affectionally. [Middle English affeccioun, fr. Old French affection, fr. Latin affectio, affection-, fr. affectus, past participle of afficere, ‘to affect, influence’]. (American Heritage Dictionary).

• affection (n.): [...]. 2. (often plural) emotion, feeling, or sentiment; (adj.): affectional. [fr. Latin affection- ‘disposition’, fr. afficere, ‘to affect’]. (Collins Dictionary).

• affection (n.): [...]. 2. often, affections; (a.): emotion; feeling; (b): the emotional realm of love. [1200-50; Middle English, fr. Old French, fr. Latin affectio]. (Webster’s College Dictionary).

Affections:

• affections (n.): feeling or emotion; [e.g.]: “an unbalanced state of affections”; (adj.): affectional; (adv.): affectionally. [Middle English affeccioun, from Old French affection, from Latin affectiō, affectiōn-, from affectus, past participle of afficere, ‘to affect’, ‘influence’; see affect¹; viz.: Middle English affecten, from Latin afficere, affect-, ‘to do to’, ‘act on’, from ad- + facere, ‘to do’]. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary).

• affections (n.): emotion, feeling, or sentiment; [e.g.]: “to play on a person’s affections”; (adj.): affectional. [C13: from Latin affectiōn-, ‘disposition’, from afficere, ‘to affect¹’]. ~ (Collins English Dictionary).

• affections (n.): (a.) emotion; feeling; [e.g.]: “to let the affections sway our reason”; (b.) the emotional realm of love; [e.g.]: “to hold a place in one’s affections”; ( adj.): affectionless. [1200-50; Middle English from Old French, from Latin affectiō]. ~ (Webster’s College Dictionary).

• affection (n.): a complex and usually strong subjective response, such as love or hate (synonyms): affectivity, emotion, feeling, sentiment. ~ (American Heritage Roget’s Thesaurus).

• affection (medicine): any pathology or diseased state of the body; (psychology): the feeling aspect of consciousness. ~ (McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms).

• affection: 1. (pathology): any disease or pathological condition; 2. (psychology): any form of mental functioning which involves emotion. ~ (Collins Discovery Encyclopaedia).

• affection (n.): 1. the state of having one’s feelings affected; bent or disposition of mind; phase of mental disposition; feeling; [e.g.]: “Beware chiefly of two affections, fear and love”. (Hugh Latimer, 1485-1555, “2d Sermon before King Edward VI.”, 1550); “And affection is applicable to an unpleasant as well as a pleasant state of the mind when impressed by any object or quality”. (Thomas Cogan, 1736-1818, “On the Passions,” i. § 1); specifically: (a) a general name for the class of feelings which bear an immediate relation of attraction or hostility toward other persons, and even toward things, as love, esteem, gratitude, hatred, jealousy, etc.; this use of the term is most frequent in ethical discussions, as in the common distinction between benevolent affections and malevolent affections; [e.g.]: “The affections and the reason are both undoubtedly necessary factors in morality, but the initiation is not in the reason, but in the affections”. (Thomas Fowler, 1832-1904, “Shaftesbury and Hutcheson”, p. 217); “The hues of sunset make life great; so the affections make some little web of cottage and fireside populous, important, and filling the main space in our history”. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What Is Success”); (b) desire; inclination; appetite; propensity, good or evil: as, virtuous or vile afections (Rom. 1. 26; Gal. v. 24); (e) one of the passions or violent emotions; [e.g.]: “Most wretched man, | That to affections does the bridle lend”. (Edmund Spenser, “Fairie Queene”, II. iv. 34). [from Middle English affectiun, ‘affection’, from Old French affection, Latin affectio(n-), ‘a state of mind or feeling, especially a favourable state’; ‘love’, ‘affection’, from afficere, adficere, ‘act upon’, ‘influence’: see affect²; affection is formally a derivative of affect², but in usage it rests also in part on affect¹]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).

• affect (n.): 1. feeling or emotion; 2. (psychiatry): an expressed or observed emotional response; 3. (obsolete): inward disposition or feeling. [1350-1400; Middle English, from Latin affectus]. ~ (Webster’s College Dictionary).

• affect (n.): the conscious subjective aspect of feeling or emotion; the experiencing of affective and emotional states; [e.g.]: “she had a feeling of euphoria”; “he had terrible feelings of guilt”; “I disliked him and the feeling was mutual”. ~ (Princeton’s WordNet 3.0).

• affect (n.): 1. affection; passion; sensation; inclination; inward disposition or feeling; [e.g.]: “My grey-headed senate in the laws | Of strict opinion and severe dispute | Would tie the limits of our free affects, | Like superstitious Jews”. (John Ford, “Love’s Sacrifice”, 1633, i. 1); “Rachel, I hope I shall not need to urge | The sacred purity of our affects”. (Ben Jonson, “Case is Altered”, i); “The affects and passions of the heart”. (Francis Bacon, “Natural History” a.k.a. ‘Historia Naturalis’, § 97); 2. state or condition of body; the way in which a thing is affected or disposed; (Richard Wiseman, 1622-1676, Serjeant-Surgeon to King Charles II, “Eight Chirurgical Treatises”; 1734, London). [Middle English affect, from Latin affectus, adfectus, ‘a state of mind or body produced by some (external) influence, esp. sympathy or love’, from afficere, ‘act upon’, ‘influence’: see affect², verb; affect, noun, like affection, is formally a derivative of affect², verb, but in usage it rests also in part upon affect¹]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).

• affective (adj.): caused by or expressing feelings; emotional; causing emotion or feeling; [e.g.]: “It was an affective scene which brought tears to the audience”; not to be confused with effective (adj.): producing the intended result; [e.g.]: “Her effective speech caused many to volunteer”; actually in force; [e.g.]: “The new law becomes effective on January 1st”. ~ (Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree).

• affective (adj.): 1. influenced by or resulting from the emotions; {emotive (=relating to affects}; 2. concerned with or arousing feelings or emotions; emotional; (adv.): affectively; affectionally; (n.): affectivity, affectiveness; {affectional; affections (=feelings or emotions}. [curly-bracketed insert added] ~ (American Heritage Dictionary).

• affective (adj.): 1. affecting or exciting emotion; suited to affect; 2. pertaining to the affections; emotional; affective quality: one of those qualities of bodies by which they directly affect the senses; often improperly extended to other properties of bodies; 3. (in psychology): relating to, characterised by, or consisting of affection: as, the affective side of the mental life, affective experience;

affective curve (in psychology): a graphic expression of the correlation of some attribute (e.g., intensity, quality) of affection with some attribute of stimulus or sensation; affective memory: the revival, in affective terms, of past affective experience;

affective process (in psychology): (a.) an affection; (b.) a mental complex of which affection is characteristic or in which it is dominant;

affective tone[§] (in psychology): affection considered with reference to the sensory or intellectual processes which it accompanies; sometimes, affection considered as an attribute of sensation. (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).

• affective (adj.): caused by or expressing feelings; emotional; causing emotion or feeling; [e.g.]: “It was an affective scene which brought tears to the audience”; not to be confused with effective (adj.): producing the intended result; [e.g.]: “Her effective speech caused many to volunteer”; actually in force; [e.g.]: “The new law becomes effective on January 1st”. ~ (Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree).

• affective (adj.): 1. influenced by or resulting from the emotions; {emotive (=relating to affects}; 2. concerned with or arousing feelings or emotions; emotional; (adv.): affectively; affectionally; (n.): affectivity, affectiveness; {affectional; affections (=feelings or emotions}. [curly-bracketed insert added] ~ (American Heritage Dictionary).

• affective (adj.): 1. affecting or exciting emotion; suited to affect; 2. pertaining to the affections; emotional; affective quality: one of those qualities of bodies by which they directly affect the senses; often improperly extended to other properties of bodies; 3. (in psychology): relating to, characterised by, or consisting of affection: as, the affective side of the mental life, affective experience;

affective curve (in psychology): a graphic expression of the correlation of some attribute (e.g., intensity, quality) of affection with some attribute of stimulus or sensation;

affective memory: the revival, in affective terms, of past affective experience;

affective process (in psychology): (a.) an affection; (b.) a mental complex of which affection is characteristic or in which it is dominant;

affective tone⁽⁰¹⁾ (in psychology): affection considered with reference to the sensory or intellectual processes which it accompanies; sometimes, affection considered as an attribute of sensation. (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).

⁽⁰¹⁾hedonic tone (as in, “affective tone”, above): an instinctual and thus affective hedonic attraction-aversion discrimination—stemming from primeval feelings of delect⁽⁰²⁾ or disgust bestowed hereditarily—underpins each and every feeling-thought-action which all feeling-beings manifest whenever ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) is present-to-itself as an affective/psychic ‘presence’ within.

⁽⁰²⁾delect (v.; rare): to delight or take pleasure in something; also, to be a source of pleasure or delight; in later use also with object (reflexive): to gratify oneself. ~ (Oxford English Dictionary).