alacrity

The party gathered itself up with alacrity from the grass.

A Little Bush Maid 1910

Moreover, simply recall the alacrity with which President Bush and his spin operatives seized upon each of these so-called "milestones" to fling Panglossian excrement into the collective eyes of America's dupes, in order to rationalize away a lost war and all the unnecessary blood on his hands.

Bush's Iraq Quagmire: "Lions Led By Donkeys" 2006

And what added to our alacrity was our expectation of meeting with two of them instead of one, for we took it for granted that the light in view was carried in the top of one ship for a direction to her consort.

Anson's Voyage Round the World The Text Reduced Richard Walter

At one cross-road a dozen American Red Cross cars were drawn up, and I recall the alacrity of a middle-aged American doctor, wearing gold pince-nez, in hopping off his ambulance and snapshotting the colonel at the head of the battery.

Pushed and the Return Push George Herbert Fosdike Nichols

Finally someone (we hope it was not Judith) called her number -- sixty-eight, and she sprang to the chalk line with what is usually termed alacrity, but it really sounded much more ominous.

Jane Allen, Junior Edith Bancroft

At the call, not only his own waiter, but two other idle waiters belonging to a quite different row of tables, rushed towards him with obsequious alacrity, which is not the general characteristic of the waiters in the Café Umberto.

A Set of Six 1906

Franklin got up at once and walked away beside her, and Althea knew that his alacrity was the greater because he felt that by going with Miss Buckston he left her alone with her cherished friend.

Franklin Kane Anne Douglas Sedgwick 1904

At the call, not only his own waiter, but two other idle waiters belonging to a quite different row of tables, rushed towards him with obsequious alacrity, which is not the general characteristic of the waiters in the Cafe Umberto.

A Set of Six Joseph Conrad 1890

And you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down.

Editorial Notes to 'Letter to the Women of England' 2007

It can't happen with that kind of alacrity without real effort on the part of the business community, and I would say the community has defaulted to government in the last little while and allowed government to take the lead.

What Price, Green? 2009