eager, avid, keen, anxious, athirst mean moved by a strong and urgent desire or interest. eager implies ardor and enthusiasm and sometimes impatience at delay or restraint.
eager to get started avid adds to eager the implication of insatiability or greed.
avid for new thrills keen suggests intensity of interest and quick responsiveness in action.
keen on the latest fashions anxious emphasizes fear of frustration or failure or disappointment.
anxious not to make a social blunder athirst stresses yearning but not necessarily readiness for action.
athirst for adventure
eager, anxious, and keen mean having or showing a strong desire or interest. eager is used when there is much enthusiasm and often impatience.
Eager travelers waited for their train. anxious is used when there is fear of failure or disappointment.
I was anxious to learn who won. keen is used when there is great interest and readiness to act.
The new scouts are keen to learn.
Examples of eager in a Sentence
… wine connoisseurs eager to visit cellars and late-fall pilgrims seeking the increasingly rare white truffle …— Corby Kummer, Atlantic, August 2000 … so many religions were steeped in an absolutist frame of mind—each convinced that it alone had a monopoly on the truth and therefore eager for the state to impose this truth on others.— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, 1996
She was eager to get started.
The crowd was eager for more.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'eager.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.