eager
Very keen and excited to do something.
- The eager puppy bounced at the door, desperate for its morning walk.
- Hands shot up all around the classroom, everyone eager to answer the quiz question first.
Similar: keen, excited, enthusiastic
eager or impatient?
Eager is looking forward with excitement. Impatient is being annoyed that you have to wait.
An eager child and an impatient child might both be standing by the front door, waiting to go to the beach. What is different is how they feel about the wait.
Eager is a happy word. The eager child is bouncing, smiling and already wearing their sun hat. They cannot wait, in the good sense.
Impatient is an irritated word. The impatient child is sighing, tapping their foot and asking, 'Why is everyone taking so long?' The waiting itself has become annoying. You can be both at once, but eager is about the thing you are looking forward to, and impatient is about the delay.
Both words, side by side
impatient
Not wanting to wait for something.
- The impatient puppy scratched at the door before anyone could find the lead.
- Zara grew impatient waiting for the kettle and kept lifting the lid to check it.
Similar: restless, eager
Why it costs marks
Questions that ask how a character feels, or what a word suggests about them, reward this difference. Eager suggests excitement and enthusiasm; impatient suggests frustration. Choosing the wrong one gets the character's mood the wrong way round.
Definitions and example sentences on this page are the ones a child sees inside Wordrealm, taken from our list of over 1,100 words. It is free to browse, with nothing to sign up for.
Sitting the 11+ in Kent, Medway or Buckinghamshire?
Plain-English guides to each test, from the councils’ own pages: Kent Test · Medway Test · Bucks Secondary Transfer Test