appetite

Noun

appetite (countable and uncountable, plural appetites)

1. A desire to eat food or consume drinks.
   • And I return with an excellent appetite. There can be no question, my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before breakfast.1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of Black Peter
   • The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite. There is something humiliating about it.1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC
2. Any strong desire; an eagerness or longing.
   • If God had given to eagles an appetite to swim.1678, Antiquitates Christianæ: Or, the History of the Life and Death of the Holy Jesus: […], London: […] E. Flesher, and R. Norton, for R[ichard] Royston, […], →OCLC
   • To gratify the vulgar appetite for the marvellous.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter IX, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and...
3. The desire for some personal gratification, either of the body or of the mind.
   • appetite for reading
   • The object of appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for; the object of will is that good which reason does lead us to seek.[1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page)