avidity
noun/əˈvɪdɪti/
Etymology From Middle English avidite, from Old French avidite (modern French avidité), from Latin aviditās (“avidity, covetousness”), equivalent to avid + -ity.
1
Usually Greediness; strong appetite.
2
Usually Eagerness; intenseness of desire.
- to eat with avidity
- Still, there was an inquiry after me, the 'who was she?' that never can, that never must be answered; and it was pursued with only the more avidity, because my accomplishments proved that I had been expensively educated, and nature had stamped me with her own kindly distinctions.1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 46:
2 more examples
- Come, walk up, and purchase with avidity, / Overcome your diffidence and natural timidity.1881, W. S. Gilbert, Patience:
- Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy—[…]—distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its flavor.1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter I (Anarchy), page 373, column 2:
3
Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Microbiology, Natural sciences, Physical sciences Usually The measure of the synergism of the strength of individual interactions between proteins.
- Synonyms
- eagerness, alacrity, enthusiasm, liveliness