ANXIOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does anxious mean? 

• ANXIOUS (adjective)
  The adjective ANXIOUS has 2 senses:

1. eagerly desirous

2. causing or fraught with or showing anxiety

  Familiarity information: ANXIOUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANXIOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Eagerly desirous

Synonyms:

anxious; dying

Context example:

dying to hear who won

Similar:

eager (having or showing keen interest or intense desire or impatient expectancy)

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Causing or fraught with or showing anxiety

Synonyms:

anxious; nervous; queasy; uneasy; unquiet

Context example:

an unquiet mind

Similar:

troubled (characterized by or indicative of distress or affliction or danger or need)

Derivation:

anxiousness (a feeling of mild anxiety about possible developments)

 Context examples 

I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for, I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that was becoming too irksome.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Seeing that my client was anxious to leave, I said no more but, calling for my cashier, I ordered him to pay over fifty £ 1000 notes.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Anxious to omit no possible precaution, Anne struggled, and said—I am afraid, ma'am, that it is not perfectly understood.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

"Why not?" in an anxious tone.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

You seem very anxious to lose your life.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; it is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Capture of the Criminal.’ Here, Watson, we are all equally anxious to hear it, so kindly read it aloud to us.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Their conference was put an end to by the anxious young lover himself, who came to breathe his parting sigh before he set off for Wiltshire.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

“How do you find yourself?” said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)