Definitions

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

  • noun One who is filled with enthusiasm; one who is ardently absorbed in an interest or pursuit.
  • noun A zealot; a fanatic.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who imagines he has special or supernatural converse with God, or that he is divinely instructed or commissioned.
  • noun One who is given to or characterized by enthusiasm; one whose mind is excited and whose feelings are engrossed in devotion to a belief or a principle, or the pursuit of an object; one who is swayed to a great or an undue extent by emotion in regard to anything; a person of ardent zeal.
  • noun [capitalized] Eccles., one of the names given to a Euchite.

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

  • noun One moved or actuated by enthusiasm; as: (a) One who imagines himself divinely inspired, or possessed of some special revelation; a religious madman; a fanatic. (b) One whose mind is wholly possessed and heated by what engages it; one who is influenced by a peculiar; fervor of mind; an ardent and imaginative person.

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

  • noun A person filled with or guided by enthusiasm.
  • noun archaic A person exhibiting over-zealous religious fervour.

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

  • noun an ardent and enthusiastic supporter of some person or activity
  • noun a person having a strong liking for something

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek enthousiastēs, possessed person, from enthousiazein, to be inspired; see enthusiasm.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From ecclesiastical Greek ἐνθουσιαστής (enthousiastēs, "an enthusiast, a zealot"), from ἐνθουσιάζειν (enthousiazein, "intransitive be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy, transitive inspire"): see enthusiasm.

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