The question of what is zealous is not the easiest, because the meaning of the adjective cannot be understood without special immersion in history. We are used to restoring the meaning of the word from the context, if, of course, we know the language well enough. Foreigners in this sense are more difficult.
“Zealous” and “military”
The promised story, which should shed light on the origin, and hence the meaning of the word. So, there was such a word as “rushing” - “zeal, zeal”. Naturally, it did not reach us, but at least an adjective remained. It is also interesting that the "army" also came from him. The latter has European roots or ties. There is a similar word in Old German (ernust - “struggle”) and in English (earnest - “serious”). It is noteworthy that all words are positive and are related to heroic things.
Value and Suggestions
Yes, the etymological dictionary has already opened the door to this magical land of meaning. But we want to not only possess knowledge of the roots, but also to understand what the explanatory dictionary is hiding from us. In other words, what is zealous? We find out right there: "Zealous and executive, fast." Interesting, huh? The adjective still raises the philosophical question: “Can one be fast and executive at the same time?” If so, then this is such a rare quality!
Let's see what is the meaning of the word zealous in ordinary sentences:
- Being zealous is probably good. But if a person is too active, then the team will quickly put him in his place. Our initiative is still punishable .
- Yes, this new employee is so zealous that I am afraid that he would not throw me out of the director's chair.
- Listen, this young man is so zealous, so eager to like me that I’m even a little scared, since no one has conquered me yet.
Answering the question of what is zealous is not as difficult as picking up synonyms for it. But we will try. Nevertheless, it seems that diligence and speed cannot be combined. If a person were sinless, he would resemble a car. However, we were distracted.
Synonyms
In general, if we talk about the experience of conversational practice, then zealous is primarily a synonym for hard work. But when we think about the result of efforts, they do not always assume the result at “5+”. True, much depends on the complexity of the assignment. For example, you can imagine a zealous secretary who has perfect order in the documents and everything is always ready, but it is difficult to imagine a zealous programmer, although maybe he is a workaholic, so everything in his hands burns. The more difficult the work, the more difficult it is to imagine the combination of diligence, speed and quality in one person. Probably a lot depends on the experience and years spent in the profession. Okay, let’s leave this topic for the reader to think independently. And let’s move on to the synonyms of “zealous”:
- diligent;
- diligent;
- diligent;
- zealous;
- executive.
Yes, that’s it. By the way, these are also options for answering the question about the meaning of the adjective. Imagine that someone is asking you about the meaning of it, but you do not want to explain anything and say that zealous is a synonym ... (there can be any word from the list above). One way or another, you talked about what zealous is.