Meaning
Informal adjective, American in flavour, meaning extremely enthusiastic, eager, or zealous, sometimes so much so that it sounds excessive or naive. It describes an attitude of wholehearted, even aggressive, willingness to get started or to fight. The English sense is a considerable drift from the Chinese source, which merely abbreviated the name of a cooperative movement. Informal and chiefly American in flavour; frequently ironic or teasing when applied to over-eagerness. Regional use: General English, originally US (borrowed from Chinese).
Origin
A Second World War American borrowing popularised by Marine officer Evans F. Carlson, who had observed China's wartime 'industrial cooperatives' (gongye hezuoshe). Their shortened name gonghe, written with characters for 'work' and 'join/together', was understood by the Marines to mean 'work together', which Carlson glossed in a 1943 interview as 'Work Together - Work in Harmony'. Carlson made 'Gung Ho!' the motto and rallying cry of his 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, whose 1942 Makin Island raid was portrayed in the 1943 Hollywood film Gung Ho!, which carried the term into wider American slang, where fellow Marines' teasing use for 'overly enthusiastic' hardened into today's meaning of zealous or eager. Linguist Albert Moe concluded that the American meanings bear little resemblance to the Chinese source, which named an organisation rather than serving as a slogan. Merriam-Webster dates first known use to 1942.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- kung ho
- kung-ho
Usage Examples
- He was gung ho about the merger until the due-diligence report landed on his desk.
- Fresh out of training, the new volunteers were so gung ho that the supervisors had to slow them down for safety reasons.
- I am not gung-ho on renovating the whole house at once; let us start with the kitchen.