avidity

noun

Etymology: From Middle English avidite, from Old French avidite (modern French avidité), from Latin aviditās (“avidity, covetousness”), equivalent to avid + -ity.

1. Greediness; strong appetite.
2. Eagerness; intenseness of desire.

   “to eat with 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.”

3. The measure of the synergism of the strength of individual interactions between proteins.