1910–1911
Britannica 11th
Encyclopaedia Britannica · 11th edition
ENTHUSIASM, a word originally meaning inspiration by a divine afflatus or by the presence of a god. The Gr. evBovmaa/MS, from which the word is adapted, is formed from the verb tvOoixTiafav, to be tvOtos, possessed by a god (6eos). Applied by the Greeks to manifestations of divine " possession," by Apollo, as in the case of the Pythia, or by Dionysus, as in the case of the Bacchantes and Maenads, it was also used in a transferred or figurative sense; thus Socrates speaks of the inspiration of poets as a form of ent…
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- Vol. 9, pp. 654-654