Choose the Right Synonym for avid

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

The Finer Points of Avid

The original and now relatively unfamiliar sense of avid, “desirous to the point of greed,” developed logically from its root in Latin, avēre (meaning “to long for”). It appears in such phrases as “avid of fame” and “avid for details,” expressions we are more likely to encounter in formal writing than in speech. More common today is the word’s somewhat weakened and ameliorated (that is, “made better,” or given a more positive connotation) meaning “extremely enthusiastic.” This is the sense regularly used of people who have embraced some hobby or pursuit (such as avid readers, gardeners, or knitters).

Examples of avid in a Sentence

He is an avid admirer of horror movies. They took an avid interest in politics. some of the newspaper's most avid readers

Recent Examples on the Web Alisha and Ty Hayes opened Pat's Rib Place in 2009, quickly drawing an avid following in Waukesha. — Jim Riccioli, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 13 May 2022 The 21-year-old was an avid baseball player and all-around talented athlete. — David Begnaud, CBS News, 12 May 2022 As avid plant and food lovers, little brings us more joy and hope after a long, frigid winter than seeing spring's first shoots pop up out of the soil. — Karla Walsh, Better Homes & Gardens, 11 May 2022 Paul Whelan, an avid traveler who has Irish, British and Canadian citizenship, visited Russia numerous times in the 2010s, and previously told ABC News he was intrigued by the country's the language and culture. — Ivan Pereira, ABC News, 3 May 2022 In 2010, a Michigan judge ordered a teenager who killed a woman in a hit-and-run to read three books per month because the woman who died was an avid reader. — Washington Post, 27 Apr. 2022 Beyond her biblio-minded merch, Hadid is an avid reader. — Liana Satenstein, Vogue, 25 Apr. 2022 According to the News Enterprise in Elizabethtown, Heath was an avid reader who had just gotten engaged. — Krista Johnson, The Courier-Journal, 5 Apr. 2022 Leonard was an avid reader and ‘80s music fan, gregarious and romantic. — Karin Brulliard And Adria Malcolm, Anchorage Daily News, 2 Apr. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'avid.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.