noun
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a person filled with or motivated by enthusiasm; fanatic
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archaic a religious visionary, esp one whose zeal for religion is extravagant or unbalanced
Other Word Forms
- antienthusiast noun
Etymology
Origin of enthusiast
First recorded in 1600–10; from Greek enthousiastḗs “inspired person, possessed person,” from enthousí(a) “possession by a god” ( enthusiasm ) + -astēs -ast ( def. ) (variant of -istēs -ist after i )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He isn’t the only enthusiast: Fifteen of the 17 analysts polled by FactSet rate the stock at Buy or Overweight.
From Barron's
Robotics enthusiasts hailed it as the next logical step after the personal-computer revolution—a robot for every household.
But in most respects, he was Welty’s tireless enthusiast, even writing to the New Republic to defend her from a blistering review of her novel “Delta Wedding” in 1946.
He came across the application on a site for credit-card reward enthusiasts, which shared the link with a disclaimer that said to use “at your own risk.”
And then there were train enthusiasts like an 11-year-old passenger, who was wearing a homemade California Zephyr shirt, a blue Amtrak baseball hat and a lanyard with collectible pins.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
