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enthuse

UK/ɛnˈθjuːz/US/ɛnˈθuz/
verbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: enthused, enthusing, enthuses

To enthuse is to speak about something with keen excitement. Enthuse about a book.

It is a back-formation from enthusiasm and was disliked for a century after it appeared. To enthuse is used slightly mockingly as often as not.

Not credited · Public domain

Definitions of enthuse

  1. 1verbenthuseTo speak about something with keen excitement.C2

    “He enthused for twenty minutes about a bridge.”

enthuse is an action.

Where it comes from

A back-formation from enthusiasm, from Greek entheos, possessed by a god.

  1. Ancient Greek

    ἔνθεος — possessed by a god

  2. English, today

    enthuse

Built from

  • ἐν · Ancient Greek — in
  • θεός · Ancient Greek — god

First attested from 1827. a back-formation from enthusiasm, from Ancient Greek ἔνθεος (“possessed by a god”), from ἐν (“in”) + θεός (“god”)

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

enthuse in the wild

  • Jean Coppin was a French traveller and professional soldier, who tried to enthuse the French people for a crusade against the Ottoman Empire.

    Jean Coppin

  • Virtual Labs enable the students to learn at their own pace and enthuse them to conduct experiments.

    Virtual Labs (India)

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.