gung ho

adjective

ˈgəŋ-ˈhō 

: extremely or overly zealous or enthusiastic

Synonyms

• agog
• antsy
• anxious
• ardent
• athirst
• avid
• crazy
• desirous
• eager
• enthused
• enthusiastic
• excited
• geeked [slang]
• great
• greedy
• hepped up
• hopped-up
• hot
• hungry
• impatient
• juiced
• keen
• nuts
• pumped
• raring
• solicitous
• stoked [slang]
• thirsty
• voracious
• wild

Examples of gung ho in a Sentence

We were really gung ho about joining the team.

he was gung ho about his accounting class

Recent Examples on the Web

The studio was really gung ho about the film—top movie star, top TV star. —Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 16 June 2024

Formerly gung ho investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs, are moving into the retail banking sector, becoming ever so slightly more like a utility than a hedge fund. —Gillian Tett, Foreign Affairs, 11 June 2019

This place has been a coaching graveyard, but Canales is gung ho about his new job anyway. —Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer, 2 Feb. 2024

The government has often been gung ho in its health-education efforts: the U.S.D.A.’s nutritional guides and food pyramids, seventies Saturday-morning-cartoon P.S.A.s, Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. —Sarah Larson, The New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2023

Other researchers are less gung ho about such heady prospects. —Daniel Garisto, Scientific American, 10 Aug. 2023

There are merely people who are gung ho about it, and people who would prefer for various reasons to soft-pedal it. —Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 2 June 2023

Everybody’s just gung ho to do this. —William E. Ketchum Iii, Rolling Stone, 6 Jan. 2023

Even financial firms, perhaps the most gung ho about return-to-office policies, have mostly caved, resigning themselves to a hybrid future that has, in many cases, stalled out at two-day-a-week callbacks. —Curbed, 15 June 2022

Word History

Etymology

Gung ho!, motto (interpreted as meaning "work together") adopted by certain U.S. marines, from Chinese (Beijing) gōnghé, short for Zhōngguó Gōngyè Hézuò Shè Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society

First Known Use

1941, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

gung ho

adjective

ˈgəŋ-ˈhō 

: extremely enthusiastic

Etymology

Gung ho! motto (thought to mean "work together") of a U.S. Marine battalion in World War II, from the Chinese (Beijing dialect) phrase Zhōngguó Gōngyè Hézuò Shè "Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society"

Word Origin

Since the war was not going well for the U.S. in 1942, Marine Lt. Col. Evans F. Carlson needed something special to make his troops feel hopeful and excited. He was organizing the Marines' Second Raider Battalion in California and told his men their motto would be gung ho. This, he told them, was Chinese for "work together." Since there was a Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society known as Gōnghé and since gōng does mean "work," and hé does mean "join," what he said seemed to make sense. But gōng and hé cannot be put together in Chinese to mean "work together." The organization known as Gōnghé was, in full, Zhōngguó Gōngyè Hézuò Shè. The Chinese themselves shortened it to Gōnghé just as we abbreviate long names and titles in English. But in English gung ho stuck as a motto and went on to become an adjective meaning "extremely enthusiastic."