eagerness

Definition

The state or quality of being eager; ardent desire.

Etymology

From Middle English egernesse, egrenesse; equivalent to eager + -ness.

Example Sentences

• "The things he had to tell about...were enough to make you almost tremble with excitement, when you heard all the intimate details from an animal charmer and realized with what thrilling eagerness and anxiety the whole busy underworld was working."
• "Meanwhile the larger company was showing no great eagerness to yield to the pressure of South Wales interests to convert its gauge, and with a view to forcing the pace, the Llynvi & Ogmore in 1871 promoted a remarkable railway from an extension of its system already authorised near Blackmill, eastward across country to join the Rhymney Railway at Nantgarw, in the Vale of Taff, above Cardiff."
• "Senvie, which is of a most biting and stinging tast, of a fierie effect,[…]serveth also to make a pretie dish of meat to be eaten, being boiled or stewed between too^([sic – meaning two]) little dishes in some convenient liquor, in such sort, as a man shall not feele it to bite at the tongues end, nor complaine of any eagernesse that it hath."