Enthusiasm (original) (raw)

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Overflowing with eager enjoyment or approval

Synonyms:

ebullience; enthusiasm; exuberance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("enthusiasm" is a kind of...):

life; liveliness; spirit; sprightliness (animation and energy in action or expression)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "enthusiasm"):

lyricism (unrestrained and exaggerated enthusiasm)

madness; rabidity; rabidness (unrestrained excitement or enthusiasm)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A lively interest

Example:

enthusiasm for his program is growing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("enthusiasm" is a kind of...):

interest; involvement (a sense of concern with and curiosity about someone or something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "enthusiasm"):

Anglomania (an excessive enthusiasm for all things English)

balletomania (extraordinary enthusiasm for ballets)

Derivation:

enthusiastic (having or showing great excitement and interest)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A feeling of excitement

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("enthusiasm" is a kind of...):

feeling (the experiencing of affective and emotional states)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "enthusiasm"):

gusto; relish; zest; zestfulness (vigorous and enthusiastic enjoyment)

avidity; avidness; eagerness; keenness (a positive feeling of wanting to push ahead with something)

exuberance (joyful enthusiasm)

technophilia (enthusiasm for new technology)

Derivation:

enthusiastic (having or showing great excitement and interest)

Credits

Context examples:

I like to hear your enthusiasm, Fanny.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

They clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling—to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy- faced lambs:—they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And he would draw me into his enthusiasms also, so that I was glad to play Friday to his Crusoe when he proclaimed that the Clump at Clayton was a desert island, and that we were cast upon it for a week.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“You have done well indeed!” cried Holmes with enthusiasm.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should show enthusiasm,” I answered coldly.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He received me with absolute enthusiasm.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But enthusiasm had lost its spring in him, and he found that he was more anxious to see Brissenden than he was to carry the good news.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Unless I had been animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this study would have been irksome and almost intolerable.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)