Definition of "avidity"

Still, there was an inquiry after me, the 'who was she?' that never can, that never must be answered; and it was pursued with only the more avidity, because my accomplishments proved that I had been expensively educated, and nature had stamped me with her own kindly distinctions.

1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 46

Come, walk up, and purchase with avidity, / Overcome your diffidence and natural timidity.

1881, W. S. Gilbert, Patience

Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy […] distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.

1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter I, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915