enthusiasm
    n 1: a feeling of excitement
    2: overflowing with eager enjoyment or approval [syn:
       exuberance, enthusiasm, ebullience]
    3: a lively interest; "enthusiasm for his program is growing"

Enthusiasm \En*thu"si*asm\, n. [Gr. ?, fr. ? to be inspired or
   possessed by the god, fr. ?, ?, inspired: cf. enthousiasme.
   See Entheal, Theism.]
   1. Inspiration as if by a divine or superhuman power;
      ecstasy; hence, a conceit of divine possession and
      revelation, or of being directly subject to some divine
      impulse.
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            Enthusiasm is founded neither on reason nor divine
            revelation, but rises from the conceits of a warmed
            or overweening imagination.           --Locke.
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   2. A state of impassioned emotion; transport; elevation of
      fancy; exaltation of soul; as, the poetry of enthusiasm.
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            Resolutions adopted in enthusiasm are often repented
            of when excitement has been succeeded by the wearing
            duties of hard everyday routine.      --Froude.
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            Exhibiting the seeming contradiction of
            susceptibility to enthusiasm and calculating
            shrewdness.                           --Bancroft.
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   3. Enkindled and kindling fervor of soul; strong excitement
      of feeling on behalf of a cause or a subject; ardent and
      imaginative zeal or interest; as, he engaged in his
      profession with enthusiasm.
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            Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
                                                  --Emerson.
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   4. Lively manifestation of joy or zeal.
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            Philip was greeted with a tumultuous enthusiasm.
                                                  --Prescott.
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ENTHUSIASM, n.  A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of
repentance in connection with outward applications of experience. 
Byron, who recovered long enough to call it "entuzy-muzy," had a
relapse, which carried him off -- to Missolonghi.