zealous
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of zealous
First recorded in 1520–30; from Medieval Latin zēlōsus; see origin at zeal, -ous
Explanation
Use the adjective zealous as a way to describe eagerness or enthusiastic activity. If you are too zealous in your efforts to decorate the house with Christmas lights, you might cause a power outage for the whole neighborhood. Zealous is the adjective for the noun zeal, "eager partisanship"; the latter has a long e, but zealous has a short one: ZEL-uhs. It can have a slightly negative connotation, and people are sometimes described as overzealous, meaning they try too hard. Zealous rhymes with jealous (and in fact they both derive from the same Greek word), but don't confuse them: a jealous person might be resentful of someone who makes zealous efforts to achieve success.
Vocabulary lists containing zealous
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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100 Words to Make You Sound Smart
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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.
Writing for The Nation, Scott Hechinger, a longtime public defender and now executive director of Zealous, identified how journalism got the story wrong.
From Salon • Jan. 8, 2023
Zealous Christians, however, were not the only Americans on the scene.
From New York Times • Jan. 22, 2021
Zealous defender of free speech and free spending in politics.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 27, 2015
Zealous champions of moral reform, then as today, thought that a proper function of the law was to eradicate vice and immorality.
From Forbes • Jul. 15, 2014
Zealous, honest, fervid, and terribly in earnest, these good folks, in their ignorance of the world and of human nature, only added to the mischief which it was their honest wish to abate.
From English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. by Everitt, Graham
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.
