Alacrity
noun ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Eagerness; liveliness; enthusiasm. countable, uncountable
"Besides, a wealthy man, well at ease, may pray to God quietly and merrily with alacrity and great quietness of mind, whereas he who lieth groaning in his grief cannot endure to pray nor can he hardly think upon anything but his pain."
- 2 liveliness and eagerness wordnet
- 3 Promptness; speed. countable, uncountable
"Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. […] Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way."
Example
More examples"Our seamen have always been famous for a matchless alacrity and intrepidity in time of danger; this has saved many a British ship, when other seamen would have run below deck, and left the ship to the mercy of the waves, or, perhaps, of a more cruel enemy, a pirate."
Etymology
Mid-15th century; from Middle English alacrite, from Latin alacritās, from alacer (“brisk”) + -itās (“-ity”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.