eagerness

Noun

eagerness (usually uncountable, plural eagernesses)

1. (usually) The state or quality of being eager; ardent desire.
   • The things he had to tell about...were enough to make you almost tremble with excitement, when you heard all the intimate details from an animal charmer and realized with what thrilling eagerness and anxiety the whole busy underworld was working.1910 November – 1911 August, Frances Hodgson Burnett, chapter 20, in The Secret Garden, New York, N.Y.: Frederick A[bbott] Stokes Company, published 1911, →OCLC
   • "I shouldn't have cared for Newport, or the Springs, father, truly," said Leslie, with a little hopeful flutter of eagerness in her voice, "but the real mountains, - O father!"1866, Adeline Dutton Train Whitney, A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life, page 16
2. (obsolete, usually) Tartness, sourness.
   • Senvie, which is of a most biting and stinging tast, of a fierie effect,[…]serveth also to make a pretie dish of meat to be eaten, being boiled or stewed between too^([sic – meaning two]) little dishes in some convenient liquor, in such sort, as a man shall not feele it to bite at the tongues end...1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book XIX.] Of Garden herbes which serue for to season our meats.”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called...
   • Presently the balsamick body is wounded, and turns sour sooner or later according to the degree of the motion; for this fierce motion or working wastes the pure spirituous Balsam, and awakens the original Qualities of Saturn and Mars, viz. an astringent Eagerness, or sour hard Quality, that would...1691, Thomas Tryon, The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness […] , 2nd edition, page 121