Reluctant vs Eager - What's the difference?
reluctant | eager |
Opposing; offering resistance (to).
* 1819 , Lord Byron, Don Juan , II.108:
* 2008 , Kern Alexander et al., The World Trade Organization and Trade in Services , p. 222:
Not wanting to take some action; unwilling.
(obsolete) Sharp; sour; acid.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) Sharp; keen; bitter; severe.
* Shakespeare
* Shakespeare
(rfc-sense) Excited by desire in the pursuit of any object; ardent to pursue, perform, or obtain; keenly desirous; hotly longing; earnest; zealous; impetuous; vehement.
* Keble
* Hawthorne
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=19 Brittle; inflexible; not ductile.
* John Locke
(comptheory) Not employing lazy evaluation; calculating results immediately, rather than deferring calculation until they are required.
As adjectives the difference between reluctant and eager
is that reluctant is opposing; offering resistance (to) while eager is sharp; sour; acid.As a noun eager is
alternative form of lang=en (tidal bore).reluctant
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung / Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave, / From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung, / Should suck him back to her insatiate grave [...].
- They are reluctant to the inclusion of a necessity test, especially of a horizontal nature, and emphasize, instead, the importance of procedural disciplines [...].
- She was reluctant to lend him the money
Synonyms
* unwilling, disinclinedExternal links
* * *eager
English
(Webster 1913)Etymology 1
From (etyl) eger, from (etyl) egre (French aigre), from (etyl) ; see acid, acerb, etc. Compare vinegar, alegar.Adjective
(er)- like eager droppings into milk
- eager words
- a nipping and an eager air
- When to her eager lips is brought / Her infant's thrilling kiss.
- a crowd of eager and curious schoolboys
citation, passage=When Timothy and Julia hurried up the staircase to the bedroom floor, where a considerable commotion was taking place, Tim took Barry Leach with him. […]. The captive made no resistance and came not only quietly but in a series of eager little rushes like a timid dog on a choke chain.}}
- Gold will be sometimes so eager , as artists call it, that it will as little endure the hammer as glass itself.
- an eager algorithm