| / English Dictionary |
ZEAL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Prompt willingness
Example:
he tried to explain his forwardness in battle
Synonyms:
eagerness; forwardness; readiness; zeal
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("zeal" is a kind of...):
willingness (cheerful compliance)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Excessive fervor to do something or accomplish some end
Example:
he had an absolute zeal for litigation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("zeal" is a kind of...):
ardor; ardour; fervency; fervidness; fervor; fervour; fire (feelings of great warmth and intensity)
Derivation:
zealous (marked by active interest and enthusiasm)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or cause)
Example:
he felt a kind of religious zeal
Synonyms:
ardor; ardour; elan; zeal
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("zeal" is a kind of...):
avidity; avidness; eagerness; keenness (a positive feeling of wanting to push ahead with something)
Derivation:
zealous (marked by active interest and enthusiasm)
Context examples:
There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice and manner, more intolerable—at least to me—than any demeanour he could have assumed.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
His anxiety that the fight should be brought off was in such contrast to the zeal with which he had chased us from his county, that my uncle could not help remarking upon it.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
At the place where the carriage stopped there stood an ancient temple, esteemed to be the largest in the whole kingdom; which, having been polluted some years before by an unnatural murder, was, according to the zeal of those people, looked upon as profane, and therefore had been applied to common use, and all the ornaments and furniture carried away.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
As it was, he did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise trifled away, without benefit from books or anything else.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
She saw it all; and entering into her feelings, promoted her quitting the house immediately, and watched her safely off with the zeal of a friend.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
He said that These were men to whose indefatigable zeal modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of their knowledge.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
He deprecated her mistaken but well-meaning zeal.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
It began calm—and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
And so you shall, like an angel as you are! cried Laurie, resolving, with a glow of philanthropic zeal, to found and endow an institution for the express benefit of young women with artistic tendencies.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
But this did not last long; Elinor had hardly got their last visitors out of her head, had hardly done wondering at Charlotte's being so happy without a cause, at Mr. Palmer's acting so simply, with good abilities, and at the strange unsuitableness which often existed between husband and wife, before Sir John's and Mrs. Jennings's active zeal in the cause of society, procured her some other new acquaintance to see and observe.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
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