The Death of Fissiparous and Other Words: A Dictionary of Words & Phrases on the Verge of Extinction

avidity

uh-VI-duh-tee

noun

keenness; eagerness; enthusiasm; craving

1826Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyThe Last ManMy active mind, when once it seized upon this new idea, fastened on it with extreme avidity. 1893Mungo ParkTravels in the Interior of AfricaExcessive thirst made many of them furious; others, being too weak to contend for the water, endeavoured to quench their thirst by devouring the black mud from the gutters near the wells, which they did with great avidity, though it was commonly fatal to them.1923Marcel ProustWithin a Budding GroveThose tender speeches, that invitation or acceptance, we think only of the pleasure which they would have given us, and not of all those other speeches and meetings by which we should have wished to see them immediately followed, which we should, as likely as not, simply by our avidity for them, have precluded from ever happening1990Eric Van Lustbader The White NinjaThe Pack Rat's attention drifted back to the girl who was sipping tea with the avidity of a lioness hunkering down to her fresh-killed meal.

Labels: Eric Van Lustbader, Marcel Proust, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Mungo Park

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