perfervid

English

Etymology

From Late Latin perfervidus, from Latin per- + fervidus. By surface analysis, per- +‎ fervid; compare pellucid.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pəːˈfəːvɪd/

Adjective

perfervid (comparative more perfervid, superlative most perfervid)

1. Extremely, excessively, or feverishly passionate; zealous.
   • 1939, Philip George Chadwick, The Death Guard, page 58:

     Manders — perfervid — 'hell'-ing excitedly (was there no one left on earth to convert but me?), quoting over a century from Marx and Nietzsche to Lenin, Lloyd George, and Eden, and on to Vessant and Mundaine and himself...

   • 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 177:

     In this case he saw himself sitting beside the breathing slender figure of Pia like someone in an old engraving – a beastly old Rembrandt exhaling the perfervid gloom of Protestantism and a diet of turnips.

   • 1989, Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel:

     Ah threw mahself down the porch steps and fell to mah knees in the middle of the yard, wringing mah hands and beating at the sky and wailing and reeling in the red dust and petitioning the almighty with perfervid prayer.

   • 2002, Joseph O'Conner, Star of the Sea, Vintage, published 2003, page 6:

     A clown, Grantley Dixon, a perfervid parrot, with his militant slogans and second-hand attitudes: like all coffee-house radicals a screaming snob at heart.

Synonyms

• fervid, eager, ardent, enthusiastic

Related terms

• fervid, pellucid

English terms prefixed with per-

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “perfervid”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.