Word.ws English Dictionary

zelous

zelous is the obsolete form of zealous.

Meaning of zealous

Adjective

zealous (comparative more zealous or (uncommon, nonstandard) zealouser, superlative most zealous or (uncommon, nonstandard) zealousest)

  1. Full of zeal; ardent, fervent; exhibiting enthusiasm or strong passion, particularly in matters of religion.
    • They neuer paſſe for the procuring of Gods honor, neither regard they how much they be bound vnto him. But euery man in the meane ſeaſon followes his owne likings. One burnes in couetouſneſſe, and another in vaine glorie, ſeeking to be aduaunced to authoritie and honour, and to bee taken to be I...1583, Iohn Calvin, translated by Arthur Golding, “On Wednesday the xxj. of August. 1555. The Threescore Sermon, Which Is the Third vpon the Eight Chapter.”, in The Sermons of M. Iohn Calvin vpon the...

Forms of zelous

comparativemore zelous
superlativemost zelous

Questions about zelous

What is zelous the obsolete form of?
Zelous is the obsolete form of zealous.

Words near zelous in the dictionary

  1. zelniks
  2. Zelophehad
  3. zeloso
  4. zelotic
  5. zelotypia
  6. zelous
  7. zels
  8. Zeltinger
  9. Zeltingers
  10. Zelus
  11. Zelver

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: zelous (page history and authors); zealous (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “zelous.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zelous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.