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• gung-ho
  gung-ho

  adjective

  wholeheartedly enthusiastic and loyal; eager; zealous.
• gung ho
  gung ho

  adjective

  extremely enthusiastic and enterprising, sometimes to excess

gung-ho

American  

[guhng-hoh] / ˈgʌŋˈhoʊ /

adjective

1. wholeheartedly enthusiastic and loyal; eager; zealous.

   a gung-ho military outfit.

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adverb

1. in a successful manner.

   The business is going gung-ho.

gung ho British  

/ ɡʌŋ həʊ /

adjective

1. extremely enthusiastic and enterprising, sometimes to excess

2. extremely keen to participate in military combat

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gung-ho Cultural  

1. Extremely enthusiastic or zealous: “He was gung-ho about going on a vacation to the beach.”

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gung ho Idioms  

1. Also, gung-ho. Extremely enthusiastic or dedicated, as in She was gung ho about her new job. This expression was introduced in 1942 as a training slogan for a U.S. Marine battalion, derived from what an American officer thought were Mandarin Chinese words for “work together.” It was actually an abbreviation for the name of Chinese industrial cooperatives.

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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”