Definition

Zealous is an adjective that describes a person or thing that shows great enthusiasm, passion, or devotion for a cause, goal, or belief. It implies a strong emotional or spiritual commitment to something.

Pronunciation

US English

UK English


See Synonyms, Antonyms and Usage

Excerpts from News Articles

The country’s current breach between zealous reformers and vehement defenders of “how it used to be” is illustrated by numerous clips of sports fans, both White and Black, who reject any change to their treasured teams and their customs. This is one area where “Imagining the Indian” might have gone deeper, but the movie is more concerned with the broad picture than with revealing details. All it gets from the defenders of Indian mascots is their sputtering rage.

Logo 2023-04-04 The Washington Post

“Prince William is so stoic in public it is always quite the treat to see him act like any other zealous fan when he watches football,” one person wrote. “Prince George is definitely his father’s twin.”

Logo 2023-04-09 The Independent

Elliott Crosset Hove plays an ambitious and zealous young Lutheran priest, Lucas, who is tasked by his superiors with travelling from Denmark to the remote wilds of colonised Iceland to set up a church. His destination may be under Danish rule but the two territories are worlds apart, in every sense.

Logo 2023-04-09 The Guardian

Zealous French prosecutors began to train their crosshairs on Diab in November 2008. That’s when agreeable Canadian police arrested the sociologist and part-time university lecturer in Ottawa pending an extradition hearing. Diab was jailed for four months without charge.

Logo 2023-04-11 Al Jazeera

And it’s not just his international allies that Mr Biden needs to placate. Mr Biden also must present a front of competence as Republicans who control the House of Representatives look to find any potential hole in his governance as a pretext for zealous questioning. Mr Biden campaigned largely on being a competent foil to the chaotic years of his predecessor Donald Trump. Any hint that he is slipping would immediately puncture that image.

Logo 2023-04-13 The Independent

It was arguably one of the smartest diplomatic moves of the 20th century. Yet somehow its lessons have been forgotten by the current crop of foreign policymakers in Washington DC, who have become obsessed with a zero-sum rendering of American hegemony that is ideologically zealous and eschews the concept of pragmatism, compromise and engagement in its dealings with other countries.

Logo 2023-04-17 RT News

Bartleby’s commentary on the corporate fashion for passion and enthusiasm for the job among employees (February 11th) reminded me of the following quote from “What’s Bred in the Bone”, a novel by Robertson Davies: “If the system taught them anything at all, it was that all authority is capricious, but may be appeased by a show of zeal , unaccompanied by any real work.”

Logo 2023-03-02 The Economist

“Matthew’s confirmation is a major win for religious-freedom practitioners, proving that a principled attorney may zealously advocate for the rights of religious minorities, conscientious objectors, and faith-based ministries without forfeiting the opportunity to serve on the bench,” First Liberty Institute said in a statement.

Logo 2023-03-15 CNN News

culturally conservative towns). From there, they proceed to meet the locals, make LQGBTIA+ folks in their midst feel seen, heard and less alone and stage zealously uplifting drag shows for everyone. Says O'Hara, "I wanted a job where I could give back to communities like mine that need it.

Logo 2023-03-21 NPR

This was the catalyst for the cotton magnate John Edward Taylor and the Little Circle of Manchester businessmen to establish the Guardian, a newspaper they would use to “ zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious liberty [and] warmly advocate the cause of reform”. Though the Guardian would prove far from radical – with Taylor chiding the speakers at St Peter’s Field for appealing “to the passions and the suffering of their abused and credulous fellow countrymen” – its foundation was symptomatic of a nascent political liberalism.

Logo 2023-03-29 The Guardian

Its handpicked jurists are just beginning to carry out its publicly stated mission of rolling back Americans’ rights they insist are the product of liberal excesses. The deeper and more vexing obstacle is that the bucket is so immense and so zealously guarded by the GOP that, short of impeaching Thomas, would-be reformers face a daunting, multifaceted task in combating one of the most entrenched and perilous threats to our democracy — a profoundly corrupted court of last resort.

Logo 2023-04-04 MSNBC News

S. government's decision of shooting down the balloons was unwarranted and aggressive and driven by the zeal to humiliate China, more so when the U.S.

Logo 2023-04-04 CGTN

Mr. Trump has long been obsessed with lawyers: obsessed with finding what he thinks are good lawyers, and obsessed with ensuring that his lawyers defend him zealously in the court of public opinion.

Logo 2023-04-08 The New York Times

But can India trust the US? The history of global politics is replete with examples of US one-upmanship at the expense of ostensible friends and partners, as well as simply botched foreign policy outreach attempts. For more than a decade, the US has been trying to build a strategic partnership with India on the basis of the two nations’ democratic political systems and their shared concern over China’s military might and expansionist zeal under President Xi, who was nominated for an unprecedented third term just days ahead of his Russia visit. US-India ties, at best, are shallow because of divergent worldviews and Washington is seen to be unreliable.

Logo 2023-04-10 RT News

Patriotic zeal appeared common around Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, 21, who had followed in the footsteps of numerous family members to join the military. Teixeira, slim and boyish in photographs taken in his blue dress uniform, had been assigned to manage and troubleshoot computers and communications systems for the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, according to the Air Force.

Logo 2023-04-13 The Washington Post

But through his missionary zeal , he was able to fuse Irish culture into Christianity, whether it was through the introduction of the Celtic Cross or the use of bonfires to celebrate feasts like Easter.


Fascism is an autoimmune disease. Under the banner of patriotism it hates its nation and people and oversteps all civilized limits in its zeal to bring about fundamental change, whatever the damage. Something of the kind is discernible in the talk of secession, national divorce, civil war.

Logo 2023-04-13 The Guardian

Regarding the assets of Russian oligarchs in the EU, Die Welt said that the Commission believes some of those individuals have so far managed to slip under the authorities’ radar, with some member states apparently lacking the zeal to go after them.

Logo 2023-04-14 RT News

DeSantis, who is Catholic, has supported restrictions on abortion from the start of his political career, backing legislation in Congress to block funding to Planned Parenthood and to restrict the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy. But he has not showed the same outward zeal he brings to fights against what he calls “woke ideology” on race, gender identity, sexual orientation and more — a far more unifying agenda for conservatives who believe the issue has general-election appeal.

Logo 2023-04-14 The Washington Post

Changes in media may actually mean this insular world of local financial power is moving farther from the part of Washington where national players do their thing. Earlier this year, when D.C. businessman-turned-philanthropist Calvin Cafritz died at 91, the scion of one of the city’s most prominent real estate families did not get an obituary in the Washington Post, which under Bezos’ ownership no longer casts itself as a zealously hometown publication.

Logo 2023-04-14 Politico

When U.S. figure skater Nathan Chen won the gold medal in men’s figure skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics, a Washington Post article attributed his win to a fierce, focused, “robotic” zeal . This robotic characterization draws on a dated stereotype of Asians as stoic, unfeeling workaholics.


Congress has authority over D.C. legislation and spending through a provision in the Constitution — but as Norton argued at a news conference last month, exercising that authority is a choice. And Republicans have chosen to exercise it with much greater zeal over the past few months than has been seen in years.

Logo 2023-04-16 The Washington Post

Sigmund Freud has always been a controversial figure. The Oedipus complex, a theory that suggests that every single person has deeply repressed incestuous instincts for their parents since childhood, is no less so. Critics of Freud have noted that, despite the case of Little Hans, there is very little empirical evidence to prove the theory’s validity. While Freud is viewed as a historically significant figure who was extremely influential in his field, his ideas are often regarded by academics and practitioners with less zeal .


"The enemy continued to attack our positions with satanic zeal ," he told the Ukrainian parliament's television channel.

Logo 2023-04-16 Reuters

Civil-liberties organisations—including the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ), the Cato Institute and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression ( FIRE )—have rallied in support of Mr Counterman and filed friend-of-the-court briefs on his side. The ACLU worries that anti-stalking laws like Colorado’s could unfairly punish speech just because it is “crudely or zealously expressed” and lead to self-censorship. FIRE cites a University of Utah student who was arrested by university law enforcement officials and subjected to a disciplinary inquiry for her hyperbolic statement that she’d “detonat[e] the nuclear reactor on campus” if the football team lost its upcoming game.

Logo 2023-04-18 The Economist

Some critics blame an excessive zeal by a country eager to impress the EU ahead of probable accession talks next year. Others blame ineptness or a punitive mindset still shaped by a Soviet-era distrust of profit.

Logo 2023-04-18 The Guardian

In his campaign announcement, Santos didn't mention any of that and instead highlighted his zeal in fighting for conservative principals in Washington and his background as "a poor boy of immigrant parents in Queens."

Logo 2023-04-18 NPR

Germany’s Die Welt daily “hit rock bottom” in its anti-Russian zeal last week, the Russian ambassador to Berlin, Sergey Nechaev, said on Monday, in response to an interview with American columnist Fred Kaplan in which he said the “easiest way” to end the Ukraine conflict is for someone to “kill Putin.”

Logo 2023-04-19 RT News

It’s like a feat of engineering, the way Morgan uses adversity as rocket fuel – she has emerged from the pandemic having published a book, established herself as a regular panellist on Loose Women, and discovered a new zeal for campaigning and activism. She won’t pass by an injustice to her personally without mining it for ways to improve lives for wheelchair users in general.

Logo 2023-04-19 The Guardian

In their zeal to continue upending abortion access after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, legislators, activists and litigants have pushed increasingly extreme measures that disregard medical science, insert government into the exam room and increase the odds of maternal deaths. Not satisfied with banning abortion in their home states, some lawmakers are trying to restrict access in other states as well — a chilling attempt to intimidate patients and physicians alike.

Logo 2023-04-20 The New York Times

Stoller’s weapon of choice is Twitter. “What’s with the religious zeal to canonize Jimmy Carter?” went one tweet thread from Stoller this winter. “He was a bad President and not in a ‘meant well’ kind of way. Genuinely awful.” The 98-year-old had entered end-of-life care the day before. The political thinker Anand Giridharadas has summed it up by saying that in a typical day on Twitter, “I agree with Matt, disagree with him, wish I had thought of something he said, regret something he said on his behalf, [and] retweet something he wrote.”

Logo 2023-04-21 Politico

They believe that I.P.A.s go best with party chat about smart-grid management and electric vehicle infrastructure. They believe in trading memes on Twitter and in messaging groups, formed around their zeal for technology as the answer to a lower-emissions future.

Logo 2023-04-22 The New York Times

The majority separated itself from individual lower court judges – all appointees of former President Donald Trump – who this month had demonstrated a zeal to further reduce access to abortion across the country.

Logo 2023-04-22 CNN News

The innovation team at Taco Bell shares this zeal . Its work is intricate, the lab as much think tank as mad-scientist lair.

Logo 2023-04-24 The New Yorker

If former president Donald Trump offered the pathos for the GOP’s modern anti-immigrant zeal , Carlson offered its logos, giving it a sport coat and khaki veneer over its red trucker hat image. Republicans in turn adopted this rhetoric in their own campaigns and made it a staple of their talking points.

Logo 2023-04-24 The Independent