Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Extremely or extravagantly eager; impassioned or zealous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Very fervid or hot; very ardent.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Very fervid; too fervid; glowing; ardent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Extremely, excessively, or feverishly passionate; zealous.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective characterized by intense emotion

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Latin perfervidus, from Latin per- + fervidus.

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Examples

  • The book is overlong, repetitious, and written in a kind of perfervid prose that quickly becomes tiring.

    The One and Only Barton, Anne 2006

  • Despite sometimes being quite sensible (as Mr. Kenney is trying to be on citizenship, refugees and immigration), it's members of the Frat Pack who are immediately off the mark with the kind of perfervid rhetoric that goes with the Conservative communications strategy: unrelenting partisanship and obsessive control of information.

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed 2009

  • Segregation was the perfervid cause of an intimidating minority, who kept everyone else in line through the threat of violence.

    History 2010

  • Segregation was the perfervid cause of an intimidating minority, who kept everyone else in line through the threat of violence.

    Stromata Blog: 2009

  • The subject of women held in thralldom to men by mysterious powers came to mind the other day when I read the story of Elizabeth Smart, author of the prose poem or the poetic novella By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, a perfervid retelling of her infatuation and affair with George Granville Barker, a poet who had achieved success at the age of 18.

    How to Hypnotize Women Con Chapman 2011

  • Segregation was the perfervid cause of an intimidating minority, who kept everyone else in line through the threat of violence.

    Bill Buckley and “the Dark People” 2009

  • The point is that Lost is to its most avid fans what Beatles albums were to the band's most avid fans in the late '60s; a seedbed for endlessly perfervid speculation.

    William Bradley: Lost In Lost William Bradley 2010

  • It's a little known fact that during Palin's many undergraduate years, when she wasn't davinning while wearing her Magen David, she was a perfervid reader of fiction and one of her favorite authors was Borges and one of her favorite books by Borges was the classic collection, Labyrinths.

    Mark Axelrod: The Palin Borges Connection; or, What's History Got to Do With It? Mark Axelrod 2011

  • It's a little known fact that during Palin's many undergraduate years, when she wasn't davinning while wearing her Magen David, she was a perfervid reader of fiction and one of her favorite authors was Borges and one of her favorite books by Borges was the classic collection, Labyrinths.

    Mark Axelrod: The Palin Borges Connection; or, What's History Got to Do With It? Mark Axelrod 2011

  • I suspect that the various principles texts being cooked up by various George Masonites will not be so perfervid in their single-minded, ideological tub-thumping along pro-laissez faire lines.

    I Heart Textbook Authors, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

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