emulous

emulous

English

Alternative forms

• æmulous (archaic)

Etymology

From Latin aemulus (“striving to equal or excel, rivaling; in a bad sense, envious, jealous”), from Ancient Greek ἁμιλλάομαι (hamilláomai, “strive, contend”), akin to Latin imitari (“to imitate”); see imitate.

Adjective

emulous (comparative more emulous, superlative most emulous)

1. ambitious or competitive.
   • 1901, Henry James, The Papers:

     They had been always of course, the Papers, very largely about him, but it was not too much to say that at this crisis they were about nothing else worth speaking of; so that our young woman could but groan in spirit at the direful example set to the emulous.

Related terms

• emulate
• emulation

Further reading

• “emulous” in Oxford English Dictionary
• emulous in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• “emulous” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
• emulous in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.