English
zeal
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ziːl/
  • (America) IPA: /zil/
Noun

zeal

  1. The fervour or tireless devotion for a person, cause, or ideal and determination in its furtherance; diligent enthusiasm; powerful interest.
    She extols the virtues of veganism with missionary zeal.
    Synonyms: ardour, eagerness, enthusiasm, intensity, passion
    Antonyms: apathy
    • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Epistle to the Romans 10.2,
      […] I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
    • 1687, John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, London: Jacob Tonson, Part 3, p. 96,
      Zeal, the blind conductor of the will
    • 1779, David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part 12, pp. 143-144,
      […] the highest zeal in religion and the deepest hypocrisy, so far from being inconsistent, are often or commonly united in the same individual character.
    • 1815, Jane Austen, Emma (novel), London: John Murray, Volume 1, Chapter 14, p. 250,
      [He] would begin admiring her drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge as seemed terribly like a would-be lover,
    • 1962, Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Chapter 15, p. 248,
      The stockman’s zeal for eliminating the coyote has resulted in plagues of field mice, which the coyote formerly controlled.
  2. (obsolete) A person who exhibits such fervour or tireless devotion.
    Synonyms: zealot
    • 1614, Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (play), London: Robert Allot, Act V, Scene 5, p. 85,
      […] like a malicious purblinde zeale as thou art!
    • 1642, Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, London: Andrew Crooke, p. 5,
      […] there are questionlesse both in Greeke, Roman and Africa Churches, solemnities, and ceremonies, whereof the wiser zeales doe make a Christian use, and stand condemned by us;
  3. The collective noun for a group of zebras.
    Synonyms: dazzle, herd
Translations

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