enthusiasm
Pluralenthusiasms (some meanings)
- 1A strong feeling of excited interest or eagerness toward something.
The volunteers tackled the cleanup with genuine enthusiasm.
His enthusiasm for jazz led him to collect hundreds of old records.
Similareagerness, zeal, passion, keenness, excitement
Oppositeapathy, indifference, reluctance, boredom
Note
Inside the everyday word sits a god: Greek en "in" plus theos "god", which came into English through French in 1603. Those roots belong to the old sense of divine possession. Today the word usually takes for, as in a great enthusiasm for country music. It works both ways: uncountable for the feeling in general, and countable when one particular passion is meant. Curb is a natural verb for holding it back.
- 2A subject or activity that someone is keenly interested in.
Astronomy was the chief enthusiasm of his later years.
Among her many enthusiasms, long-distance sailing came first.
Similarpassion, interest, hobby, pursuit
Note
Here the word names the thing loved rather than the feeling, so it is counted and listed: my main enthusiasm, her many enthusiasms. Nicholas Joll's Philosophy and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2012) gives a list of Adamsian enthusiasms, from fast cars to Pink Floyd. To tell it from the feeling itself, look at the grammar. An enthusiasm for sailing is a feeling. Sailing as one of her enthusiasms is the pursuit.
- 3Possession by a god; the divine inspiration or frenzy thought to result from a deity entering a person.
The oracle's enthusiasm was taken as proof that Apollo himself spoke through her.
The intoxication that they sought was that of ‘enthusiasm’, of union with the god.
1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western PhilosophyNote
The literal meaning hidden in the Greek: en "in" plus theos "god", a god within. As living usage it is obsolete. It survives as a historian's term for ancient rites of union with a deity, and Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy (1946) still sets it off in inverted commas. Use it only in that historical frame. Elsewhere, readers will hear the everyday "eagerness" sense.
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Origin
First attested in 1603, from Middle French enthousiasme, from Late Latin enthusiasmus, from Ancient Greek enthousiasmós, formed from en ("in"), theós ("god"), and ousía ("essence").