gung-ho
adjective
wholeheartedly enthusiastic and loyal; eager; zealous.
gung-ho
American
[guhng-hoh]
/ ˈgʌŋˈhoʊ /
adjective
adverb
gung ho
British
/ ɡʌŋ həʊ /
adjective
-
extremely enthusiastic and enterprising, sometimes to excess
-
extremely keen to participate in military combat
gung-ho
Cultural
gung ho
Idioms
Etymology
Origin of gung-ho
Introduced as a training slogan in 1942 by U.S. Marine officer Evans F. Carlson (1896–1947), from Chinese gōng hé, the abbreviated name of the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society, taken by a literal translation as “work together”
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.
See Examples For:
He’s gung-ho about continuing to try to win, again, including next year, subject to whatever next year’s climate looks like.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026
Some were self-assured and gung-ho; some were silent and pensive.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 29, 2026
SINGAPORE—After a year of gung-ho news about China’s gains in artificial intelligence, some elite Chinese AI researchers are coming to a more pessimistic conclusion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026
This is one of the reasons U.S. corn farmers were so gung-ho on ethanol when it was introduced in the 2000s: It was a new use case for their product in a saturated commodity market.
From Barron's ● Dec. 22, 2025
It was weird how responsible he felt for the other two: plaintive, pitiful, confused Chip; naïve, gung-ho, enthusiastic Katherine.
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Scott Camil talks about starting out anti-Communist and gung ho; he then came home from Vietnam, heard Jane Fonda speak and was transformed into an antiwar activist who publicly testified about atrocities he had committed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 31, 2025
Other researchers are less gung ho about such heady prospects.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 10, 2023
He said the ranks include people who are gung ho and supremely fit, but also more ordinary people.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 14, 2023
“Consistent with my own push for statehood, of course I was gung ho about giving this authority back to the District,” she said.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 31, 2021
But voting booths aside, I worried I'd be betraying my Iranian side if I was too gung ho about becoming fully Americanized.
From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
