eagerness

[ee-ger-nis]

noun

1. in an earnest, ardent, or eager way; keenness.

   The professor’s love for the topic, and her eagerness to share it with others, comes across in every word of every lecture.

Word History and Origins

Origin of eagerness¹

eager ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )

Example Sentences

A director of national intelligence who’s shown no great abundance of that quality but, rather, an eagerness to twist and bend facts like a coat hanger, serving whatever cockamamie claim the president burps up.

From Los Angeles Times

The eagerness of the leading stars to get involved should not come as a surprise.

From BBC

To me, it is really about an openness to experience and to other human beings and who other people are, regardless of how they are different from you — a willingness and eagerness to experience that.

From Salon

“We admire UCLA’s eagerness to take a single ranking for its undergraduate program and use it for all it is worth,” Lyons, a 1982 Berkeley alumnus, said to The Times.

From Los Angeles Times

He demonstrated anew his eagerness to divide and conquer and, with swagger, put the bully into bully pulpit.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• ambition 
• ardor 
• excitement 
• fervor 
• hunger 
• impatience 
• keenness www.thesaurus.com
• longing 
• thirst 
• yearning 
• zeal