eagerness

UK/ˈiːɡənəs/US/ˈiɡɚnəs/

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,299 of 15,258neutral

Eagerness is keen and impatient willingness. Wanting to start, and finding it hard to wait.

It takes to and a verb, so an eagerness to help or an eagerness to please, and that second phrase carries a faint warning, since being eager to please can shade into being unable to say no. The adjective eager is commoner than the noun. There is a fixed image in an eager beaver, meaning somebody enthusiastic to the point of irritating everybody else.

Definitions of eagerness

1nouneagernessKeen and impatient willingness to do something.C1
“His eagerness to help was slightly overwhelming.”

Where it comes from

Middle English
egernesse
English, today
eagerness

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 9 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

eagerness in the wild

All of these women are selected not only for their superior athletic skills, but also for their leadership abilities, academic excellence and eagerness to participate in community service.
Honda-Broderick Cup
In his eagerness to grow coffee himself at home, he smuggled seven coffee beans out of the Yemeni port of Mocha which were hidden in his beard.
Baba Budan
First of these is Thoreau's eagerness to find a hero.
Thomas Carlyle and His Works
Britza is a Christian, and was deemed one of "God's squad" in WA Parliament for his eagerness to mention his religion publicly.
Ian Britza
During his time in Egypt, he was known for his eagerness in enforcing the law, including with the use of capital punishment.
Hadim Mesih Pasha

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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