zestful
AmericanOther Word Forms
- zestfully adverb
- zestfulness noun
Etymology
Origin of zestful
Explanation
If someone is zestful, they're energetic and enthusiastic. Your zestful performance on the soccer field should earn you the title of Most Valuable Player! The noun zest has two meanings: the sour outer layer of peel on a citrus fruit or a passionate enthusiasm. The adjective zestful is used only in the second, more figurative way, to describe someone with true zeal or verve. A zestful response to an essay question will definitely get your teacher's attention, and a zestful audition may very well win you the role of Macbeth in your school's upcoming production.
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.
Actress Angela Lansbury who stormed the New York stage in 1966 as the zestful, eccentric star of “Mame” and solved endless murders as crime novelist in the TV series “Murder, She Wrote,” died at 96.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 24, 2022
Maggy Hurchalla, 81, a zestful and adventuresome environmentalist who carved a reputation independent from her trailblazing sister, Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general, died Feb. 19 at her home in Stuart, Florida.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 11, 2022
It follows on the awkwardly zestful Biennial of 2017, which, having been assembled, by and large, before the 2016 national election, seemed pointed toward a future that was abruptly kaput.
From The New Yorker • May 20, 2019
Adams, the elder statesman of the party, has an old-fashioned, earnest, zestful cadence to his prose.
From Washington Post • Aug. 16, 2018
"He was," with zestful emphasis on the verb.
From A Son of the City A Story of Boy Life by Seely, Herman Gastrell
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.
