eagerness

American  

[ee-ger-nis] / ˈi gər nɪs /

noun

1. in an earnest, ardent, or eager way; keenness.

   The professor’s love for the topic, and her eagerness to share it with others, comes across in every word of every lecture.

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Etymology

Origin of eagerness

eager ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )

Explanation

Eagerness is a characteristic of being excited and prepared to do something. Shooting your hand in the air and shouting, "Me! Me!" when your teacher asks for a volunteer is a good way to show your eagerness. A basketball team displays its eagerness by running onto the court at the start of the game, and a puppy's eagerness to lick your face and nibble your fingers is either the cutest thing about it, or one of the many reasons you don't like puppies. Eagerness and eager are both positive words, but in the thirteenth century eager meant "fierce or angry," and it shares a Latin root with the sour word acrid, or "bitter."

Example Sentences

"Eagerness, excitement, anxiousness, to give this organization and the Jones family everything they invested in," Prescott said.

From Fox News • Mar. 10, 2021

Eagerness in reading counts as much as it does in living.

From The Lost Art of Reading by Lee, Gerald Stanley

Eagerness, and a sort of languor, were running in her veins; she did not look at him from under her shady hat.

From Saint's Progress by Galsworthy, John

The Eagerness with which the Duke of Orleans seized the Ministry, confirmed the Public in their Opinion, that the Cardinal had entertained a Thought of asserting his own Independency.

From The Memoirs of Charles-Lewis, Baron de Pollnitz, Volume II Being the Observations He Made in His Late Travels From Prussia thro' Germany, Italy, France, Flanders, Holland, England, &C. in Letters to His Friend. Discovering Not Only the Present State of the Chief Cities and Towns; but the Characters of the Principal Persons at the Several Courts. by P?llnitz, Karl Ludwig von

What say'st thou, my Girl? said he, with some Eagerness; had'st thou not better stay with me, than go to my Sister Davers?

From Pamela Censured by Anonymous

Related Words

• ambition
• ardor
• excitement
• fervor
• hunger
• impatience
• keenness
• longing
• thirst
• yearning
• zeal