To kindle into enthusiasm. Mr. R. G. White considered this a word peculiar to the South. He “never heard of its use by any person born and bred north of the Potomac.”
1859. They are what they call in the country “enthused”—run mad on the subject [of Cuba].—Mr. Thompson of Kentucky, U.S. Senate, Feb. 16: Cong. Globe, p. 1058.
1869. The only democrat whose nomination could enthuse the democracy of Ohio.—An Ohio paper, quoted in Notes and Queries, 4 S. iv. 512.
1884. Even the stenographers … here sat with suspended stencils, and finally, utterly enthused, threw them up.—Shields, ‘Life of Prentiss,’ p. 181.
