Definition of "emulous"

[I]f he leaves the School poſſeſs'd of a ſluggiſh indolent Diſpoſition, and of Learning rather forc'd upon him than choſen, it is probable he will forget what he brought thence; but if he be active, emulous and aſpiring, he will certainly find Time for Reading and Thinking; for tho' it be a homely, it is a true Saying, that where there is a Will, there is a Way.

1724, Pharmacopolæ Justificati: Or, Apothecaries Vindicated from the Imputation of Ignorance. Wherein is Shown, that an Academical Education is No Way Necessary to Qualify a Man for the Practice of Physick, London: Printed for J. Roberts, […], page 6

In such near proximity with the invalid, though all had been emulous of showing him attention, perhaps none were more truly affected by the critical situation of the unhappy Douglas than Miss Airey.

1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter XIV, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 204

A dozen emulous oung persons in, or just out of, pinafores, swift-runners, had taken the field.

'1859, George Meredith, chapter 1, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall

They had been always of course, the Papers, very largely about him, but it was not too much to say that at this crisis they were about nothing else worth speaking of; so that our young woman could but groan in spirit at the direful example set to the emulous.

1901, Henry James, The Papers