adjective

• 1Expressing feelings of gratitude, pleasure, or approval in an unrestrained or heartfelt manner.

  ‘an effusive welcome’

  More example sentences

  • ‘My approach is to rarely ask him for anything if I can at all help it, since his granting of a favour requires about 3-5 years of effusive gratitude and grovelling.’
  • ‘No prizes, I'm afraid, but you'll have my most effusive gratitude.’
  • ‘The conductor, short, chubby, curly-haired and Puckish, has been effusive in his welcome.’
  • ‘He was in effusive mood as he welcomed guests.’
  • ‘I would have hugged him but he looked a little unsettled at my effusive thanks, so I just said I'd name my first-born son in his honour.’
  • ‘On the surface he is a genial giant, effusive in his thanks when handed a drink.’
  • ‘It's interesting to see because he immediately puts on this effusive, charming but slightly distant manner, in case he doesn't know them.’
  • ‘Her PA made up for that with a dazzling smile and an effusive thanks.’
  • ‘He finds the English more mannerly, less effusive than the Italians.’
  • ‘Some of their comments are insightful and interesting, but like many filmmakers they fall into the trap of gushing effusive praise about everyone they worked with.’
  • ‘I cannot be too effusive in my praise of the manner in which the medical evidence was organized and presented.’
  • ‘It's also worth noting that it's easier to write a damning review than an effusive one.’
  • ‘Marino is more effusive: ‘We got out the car after we'd both driven it, and we kind of looked at each other, started laughing and had a hug.’’
  • ‘He wasn't an effusive, jolly person, more a sort of seriously fine, caring man, reliable as the day was long.’
  • ‘Roman historians were much more effusive about victories than defeats.’
  • ‘Gracious as he was in congratulating the actors who were nominated alongside him - as well as some who weren't - he saved his most effusive thanks for his wife, Robin Wright Penn.’
  • ‘His effusive praise has left me blushing.’
  • ‘I genuinely admire the fact that this woman can be so bubbly and effusive on a Saturday morning, although I suspect that she has to go and hit a punchbag repeatedly at the end of her shift, while cursing each and every customer under her breath.’
  • ‘His colleagues were equally effusive with their sympathies and unanimous in the thinking that his condition might be stress-related.’
  • ‘They receive you with effusive warmth, offer you mint tea poured from a silver teapot from high into little glasses, and serve you the local dishes cooked in the traditional way.’
  • ‘‘Every day I talk to people who love the company as much as I do,’ the effusive 34-year-old says.’

  Synonyms

  gushing, gushy, unrestrained, unreserved, extravagant, fulsome, demonstrative, lavish, enthusiastic, rhapsodic, lyrical, exuberant, ebullient

  View synonyms

• 2Geology
  (of igneous rock) poured out when molten and later solidified.

  ‘The subalkaline character of the magmatic activity, combined with the prevalence of acidic effusive rocks, is characteristic of an orogenic suite developed on continental crust.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘If the mafic sheets were effusive and associated with primary volcaniclastic rocks, they should have contributed detritus to any immediately overlying sediments.’
  • ‘The cooling of the effusive rocks takes place in two stages’
  • ‘These white effusive igneous formations, found there and in the Thomas Mountains of Utah, and also in the tin districts of Catron and Sierra Counties within New Mexico, are still the only known source of bixbite.’

  1. 2.1Relating to the eruption of large volumes of molten rock.
     ‘effusive volcanism’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Volcanic activity at Mount Etna has been characterized by several effusive eruptions in the last 30 years.’
     • ‘Since the adoption of the exhalative model for the mineralization, the host succession has been interpreted as a dominantly effusive, and explosively eruptive, volcanic pile.’
     • ‘The nature of the degassing process within a volcanic edifice is critically important to the nature of eruptions, whether explosive or effusive, from the volcano.’
     • ‘Because all the ejected glass was found within a 5-meter radius of the effusive center, one can assume a similar maximum height of expulsion.’
     • ‘The larger masses of molten glass remained near the effusive center; these were slower to solidify and commonly became strange agglomerations where bombarded by the rain of smaller ejecta.’