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earnest
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show 188 more with this conextual meaning
  • I make up a green-bean dish with orange peel and dill, in an earnest effort to be jazzy and inventive.   (source)
    earnest = determined
  • I tried to breathe in the Dr. Singh—sanctioned way without making it too obvious, but within a few minutes I was sweating in earnest,   (source)
    in earnest = intensely (a lot)
  • I wanted to make fun of her, but she was so earnest.   (source)
    earnest = sincere or serious
  • Smugness faded from it, replaced by a dogged earnestness that fooled Judge Taylor not at all: as long as Mr. Ewell was on the stand, the judge kept his eyes on him, as if daring him to make a false move.   (source)
    earnestness = sincerity or seriousness
  • But these were considerations for another day, another year, because Hatter's worldwide search for Alyss now began in earnest.   (source)
    in earnest = in a serious manner
  • Kit laughed, then took the child's hands in her own and spoke as earnestly as she knew how. "You trust me, don't you?"   (source)
    earnestly = sincerely
  • Anatole's students were as earnest as the grave.   (source)
    earnest = serious
  • Earnestness is highly underestimated.   (source)
    earnestness = sincerity or seriousness
  • "Daddy?" Colton looked at me earnestly.
    "What?"
    He gazed at me and didn't move his eyes from mine. "Daddy, you know I almost died."   (source)
    earnestly = seriously
  • Roonwit had just raised his hand and was leaning forward to say something very earnestly to the King   (source)
    earnestly = sincerely
  • After Saladin's abrupt departure, the preparations for Natalie's execution began in earnest.   (source)
    in earnest = in a serious manner
  • It has a certain earnest, working-class sound about it.   (source)
    earnest = sincere
  • Over this he prayed long and earnestly.   (source)
    earnestly = sincerely with seriousness
  • (Earnestly) Well, you believe in it, don't you, Mr. Webb?   (source)
    earnestly = sincerely or seriously
  • (earnestly) I mean every word of that, too--and then some!   (source)
  • Professor, are you in earnest, or is it some monstrous joke?   (source)
    in earnest = serious
  • Martin was honest and appallingly earnest, but if he had the innocence of the dove he lacked the wisdom of the serpent.   (source)
    earnest = sincere
  • ...and said, with an earnestness which I shall never forget, "Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my Antonia!"   (source)
    earnestness = seriousness
  • 'Yes, we will; indeed we will,' said Bobbie, earnestly; 'but we do beg your pardon — and really we haven't caught a single fish.   (source)
    earnestly = sincerely
  • He spoke lightly, but it was evident that he was very much in earnest.   (source)
    in earnest = serious
  • cannot you see that I am in deadly earnest?   (source)
    earnest = sincere or serious
  • The earnest girl brought forward a scheme of "personal supervision and mutual help," the effect of which was to alter poor people until they became exactly like people who were not so poor.   (source)
    earnest = excessively serious
  • "Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me who love him than that he should come to harm through ignorance," Baloo answered very earnestly.   (source)
    earnestly = sincerely or seriously
  • the men and women who come to us for an education are in earnest;   (source)
    in earnest = serious
  • I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day,   (source)
    earnest = sincere or serious
  • They talked low and earnest.   (source)
    earnest = sincere
  • Even when I studied most earnestly it seemed more like play than work.   (source)
    earnestly = seriously
  • he grew more and more discontented with his desultory life, began to long for some real and earnest work to go at,   (source)
    earnest = serious
  • This child of its father's guilt and its mother's shame has come from the hand of God, to work in many ways upon her heart, who pleads so earnestly and with such bitterness of spirit the right to keep her.   (source)
    earnestly = sincerely
  • 'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.   (source)
  • ...he spoke ... of his earnest desire to see me,   (source)
    earnest = sincere or serious
  • He had a most earnest desire to learn to read.   (source)
    earnest = serious
  • I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart to God:   (source)
  • He sat by the corpse all night, weeping in bitter earnest.   (source)
    earnest = sincerity
  • At this moment, voices were heard in the outer apartment, in earnest conversation, and very soon a rap was heard on the door.   (source)
    in earnest = serious
  • How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate!   (source)
    earnestly = sincerely
  • "Oh, yes, sir," said Dobby earnestly.†   (source)
  • It had started to snow in earnest, and a steady stream of snowflakes flashed out of the darkness, spinning and swirling with the wind.†   (source)
  • So he began to search a bit more in earnest.†   (source)
  • He was leaning forward, earnestly.†   (source)
  • After a little while, she said earnestly, "We'll get through this, J."—that was her nickname for me—"I promise."†   (source)
  • "Now you do," says Baretski, his expression earnest.†   (source)
  • Dr. Fisch's face was deadly earnest.†   (source)
  • Looking at them now, however, with their Hi-Liter marks and underlinings and earnest handwritten notes, the impact they had on her is obvious.†   (source)
  • I don't claim that Powell had it all figured out: American history bedevils the most earnest attempts to make sense of it.†   (source)
  • "Piscine, can this be true?" asked the imam earnestly.†   (source)
  • He hooked his fingers together earnestly, as if giving the matter some thought, and spoke as softly as he thought one should speak in such a situation.†   (source)
  • And yet, the more he listened, the more he sensed Sophie Neveu was speaking in earnest.†   (source)
  • There was something earnest in the way she put stylus to paper, like a littlie learning how to read.†   (source)
  • She smiled in earnest then.†   (source)
  • The hundred nights they'd sat up debating the pros and cons of self destruction with the earnestness of philosophers chained to a madhouse wall.†   (source)
  • "Well, you know you can't help everybody," he looked at me earnestly.†   (source)
  • A crack of thunder rang out, loud and sudden as a gunshot, and the rain began in earnest.†   (source)
  • "People who've been injured because of war," Giti said earnestly, oblivious to Hasina's toying.†   (source)
  • Thomas stopped talking and looked at Jorge earnestly.†   (source)
  • "Never," he said, his voice cracking with earnestness.†   (source)
  • "Thanks so much for everything, Miss Perumal," said Reynie, earnestly taking her hand.†   (source)
  • Stargirl was leaning forward, looking earnestly at Becca Rinaldi, her voice small as a little girl's.†   (source)
  • In his opening statement, Lawton spoke earnestly and in a soft voice.†   (source)
  • "Oh, we don't travel at the speed of anything," Mrs Whatsit explained earnestly.†   (source)
  • During the summer of 1939, all of Krakow began to prepare for war in earnest.†   (source)
  • He came toward me with an earnest smile.†   (source)
  • The pup's tail wagged in earnest.†   (source)
  • As a folksinger, she was Hester Eastman—an earnest nobody, a flop.†   (source)
  • WHEN I get back home Du and another boy or man are on the living-room sofa talking in earnest Vietnamese.†   (source)
  • She had her head down, talking earnestly to Shandra.†   (source)
  • The eldest, Veronika, is deeply earnest.†   (source)
  • Finny and I had stood up, and Leper looked earnestly from one to the other of us from his chair.†   (source)
  • The heat of summer had begun in earnest.†   (source)
  • She knew that it was not correct to refer to her dramas in the plural, that her mockery distanced her from the earnest, reflective child, and that it was not the long-ago morning she was recalling so much as her subsequent accounts of it.†   (source)
  • Traveling feet-first along the ladder, he soon had to grip it in earnest as the centripetal force of the rotating ship took hold.†   (source)
  • I've always had this hidden desire to do something in medicine," George admitted earnestly.†   (source)
  • The good citizens of Minneapolis are coming to the meeting hall today with the earnest intention of taking one of you home—possibly more than one.†   (source)
  • I thought about it, looking at the pictures and then at my grandfather, his face so earnest and open.†   (source)
  • The letter reveals nothing other than earnest pedagogical intent, mentions a panel Dimitri and the professor to whom it's addressed attended some years ago.†   (source)
  • Programming in earnest by sophomore year.†   (source)
  • His fingers toyed with the hilt of his borrowed blade, though Dany knew he had never used a sword in earnest.†   (source)
  • In the mirror, I can see their earnest faces following her every move, their eagerness when it is their turn to try a step.†   (source)
  • She had just thought to start packing in earnest when someone knocked at the door.†   (source)
  • Eric shook his head, earnestly.†   (source)
  • Hannah had to laugh at his earnestness.†   (source)
  • Laughter blew across the moon-colored lawn from the house of Clarisse and her father and mother and the uncle who smiled so quietly and so earnestly.†   (source)
  • He's watching me earnestly, making sure I'm still here with him.†   (source)
  • When Medea spotted Piper, she started climbing in earnest.†   (source)
  • Mr. Barbour was saying very earnestly.†   (source)
  • "No, no," Dart said, a little too earnestly.†   (source)
  • Once the Book was translated, Artemis could begin planning in earnest.†   (source)
  • Danny told his father earnestly that he hadn't been down in the cellar.†   (source)
  • I could see her talking and smiling, turning that earnest gaze on the guy, who nodded as she spoke, looking like a chastised adolescent.†   (source)
  • "Murtagh," said Eragon earnestly, "unless you wish to die, we must go to the Varden.†   (source)
  • These goof sessions, which almost always ended as earnest talks on civil rights, often went on until Mommy got home from work.†   (source)
  • It's going to rain in earnest before long.†   (source)
  • I stared at him earnestly, hoping to disguise my impatience as admiration.†   (source)
  • She began to cry in earnest.†   (source)
  • As the wooing of Michael Oher had started, in earnest, in September and run all the way to February, a lot of other people's valuable time had been wasted: all along Michael had known he was going to Ole Miss.†   (source)
  • The hunt had begun in earnest.†   (source)
  • Most recently he had turned down another outlandish idea, this from an earnest young Pittsburgh engineer who had attended his lecture to the Saturday Afternoon Club.†   (source)
  • You could, I suppose, try being really, really earnest, portraying the characters as very serious and sober, making them noble by virtue of their goodness.†   (source)
  • On the elevator door, he was talking at a podium, somewhere else, flags rippling behind him, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his hands shaped into earnest fists.†   (source)
  • Denver saw lowered heads, but could not hear the lead prayer--only the earnest syllables of agreement that backed it: Yes, yes, yes, oh yes.†   (source)
  • Father, who was incapable of practicing deceit or even recognizing it, took a long and earnest sniff.†   (source)
  • He looked so earnest, so sad and hurt, that it almost made me feel guilty.†   (source)
  • A former advertising executive with a boyish face and the earnest delivery style of a motivational speaker, Novak charmed the crowd.†   (source)
  • But she was professional in her duty, reading to him with high earnestness, as to a child, a bout dead men who leave messages on answering machines.†   (source)
  • Farid picked him up, put him on his shoulder, and looked earnestly at Dustfinger.†   (source)
  • On Easter Monday the rain began again in earnest.†   (source)
  • He wore old-fashioned spectacles that made him look earnest and completely belied his easygoing charm and juvenile but totally disarming sense of humor.†   (source)
  • My employer's godson looked an earnest, scholarly young man, and one could see many fine qualities in his features; yet given the topic one wished to raise, one would have certainly preferred a lighterhearted, even a more frivolous sort of young gentleman.†   (source)
  • He made an almost childish remark, half ironically but half in deadly earnest.†   (source)
  • She has this earnest look on her face, as though she's concerned about me.†   (source)
  • They look earnest and on edge in their white uniforms, their faces showing more stress than usual.†   (source)
  • What if a dozen people told you, with perfect earnestness, that shamble-men were out in the fields, eating—†   (source)
  • "I don't blame you at all, Nick," Gilpin said earnestly.†   (source)
  • Jace," Clary said hastily, before they could start fighting in earnest, "you have to go back to the Institute.†   (source)
  • At the age of forty, half in earnest and half in jest, he had said in class: "All I need in life is someone who understands me."†   (source)
  • "Maybe there's a way to change your mom's mind," he said earnestly.†   (source)
  • The earnestness of her face showed clearly the emotion she had gone through in arriving at her decision.†   (source)
  • Even as I continued to make halfhearted inquiries about finding Marley a new home, I began working with him in earnest.†   (source)
  • He'd educated himself in his spare time, had saved his money with the earnestness of a Horatio Alger, started his own newspaper, gone to war, come home, pressed on, moved forward.†   (source)
  • Saeed in particular was touched by a native boy, just out of school, or perhaps in his final year, who came to their house and administered polio drops, to the children but also to the adults, and while many were suspicious of vaccinations, and many more, including Saeed and Nadia, had already been vaccinated, there was such earnestness in the boy, such empathy and good intent, that though some argued, none had the heart to refuse him.†   (source)
  • I began to cry in earnest now, for I knew what was coming.†   (source)
  • Only one thing could help me, so I prayed earnestly that I'd be allowed to sit under the house and have the building collapse on my left jaw.†   (source)
  • The sentence came out more earnest than sarcastic.†   (source)
  • This time, I dived in earnest.†   (source)
  • "Good," he said earnestly.†   (source)
  • Every now and then, an earnest wrinkle forms between her brows.†   (source)
  • Oh, we didn't pray for that, Ivan Denisovich," Alyosha said earnestly.†   (source)
  • Her voice had grown impatient, and she began closing the distance between us in earnest.†   (source)
  • I think of all the remarkable things he is— smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind.†   (source)
  • The picture was the climax of Perry's never very earnest spiritual quest, and, ironically, the termination of it; he adjudged his Jesus "a piece of hypocrisy," an attempt to "fool and betray" Willie-Jay, for he was as unconvinced of God as ever.†   (source)
  • Peter lifted his face, crying in earnest now.†   (source)
  • Back at the hotel, labor pains began in earnest and my water broke.†   (source)
  • Tow-haired boys and girls, earnest, carrying knapsacks, wearing khaki-colored shorts, with heavy buttocks and thighs, wandered dully through the town.†   (source)
  • I trained in a desultory way, and only years later, when I had put on a few more pounds, did I begin to box in earnest.†   (source)
  • When she met him later, at an art gallery, he began wooing her in earnest.†   (source)
  • Probably an earnest Cadet trying to make class on time.†   (source)
  • He spoke in an earnest and urgent voice, and his hands shaped what he said.†   (source)
  • "What position do you play?" he asked her earnestly when they passed each other on the street.†   (source)
  • "We'll buy a house," Phoebe said, her expression intent now, earnest.†   (source)
  • Now that they had to use it in earnest, they found it even narrower than they had thought.†   (source)
  • "And what I want you to know is," she said earnestly, as if this was private and we didn't have an audience, "that I don't care what anyone says, I don't think you're all weird since that thing happened with your dad.†   (source)
  • There was something almost grotesque in the idea which made Stoddard smile a little at her earnestness.†   (source)
  • "Not a word," I replied earnestly.†   (source)
  • Red began in earnest.†   (source)
  • If this meets his eye, he is earnestly requested to communicate with his friends, who are in deep anxiety….†   (source)
  • I spent almost six years under supervision by the feds, reporting monthly to my pretrial supervisor, an earnest young woman with an exuberantly curly mullet and an office in the federal court building down on Pearl Street in Manhattan.†   (source)
  • In front of me the mountains began in earnest.†   (source)
  • Our antisubmarine operations begin in earnest in another twelve hours.†   (source)
  • Then it began to rain in earnest.†   (source)
  • Unhurried, earnestly curious, but seemingly unmindful of the consequences of being caught.†   (source)
  • "No," Mortenson, said, rubbing out the work of an earnest nine-year-old girl with his palm and drawing the correct number.†   (source)
  • The God-fearing "good boy," the earnest, reform-minded son who had wept on hearing the sermon "Alcohol versus Christianity," was slipping back into the grip of the vice that would war with his good instincts and foreshorten his life.†   (source)
  • "Soon they'll look for me in earnest."†   (source)
  • Suddenly, Steve's earnestness, his caring attention to my pains and ills, didn't seem as attractive as Marc's "seen it all, done it all" world.†   (source)
  • Her face looked sad and serious as she talked earnestly into the camera.†   (source)
  • 'Do not speak of such things!' said Strider quickly, and with surprising earnestness.†   (source)
  • Jack looked at the earnest, pleading faces of his companions, then drew himself up and looked at the Winter King.†   (source)
  • I looked at him with all the earnestness and trust my worried eyes could manage.†   (source)
  • How earnest.†   (source)
  • You see,' he confided earnestly, 'what I hope to do is give the men in this squadron the best meals in the whole world.†   (source)
  • DURING THE NEXT year, my education in the upstairs women's chamber began in earnest, but I already knew a lot.†   (source)
  • By sixth grade, he was a skinny, earnest, straight arrow, a little taller than the other kids and mostly quiet— waiting to be noticed.†   (source)
  • This time things were slow and earnest.†   (source)
  • "I have to say, I think it's bad news for the industry," says Alicia earnestly.†   (source)
  • She spoke earnestly, her face reflecting her feelings, hiding nothing.†   (source)
  • He dropped to his belly, body shaking in earnest.†   (source)
  • You'll be all right again, Mr. Savo," he said earnestly.†   (source)
  • Jake Brigance flashed him an earnest smile and said, "Some of these questions might be kind of personal, Mr. Dark, and if you don't want to answer them, that's fine.†   (source)
  • The most heartfelt and earnest experience he had from his voyage across the United States to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, was the opportunity to meet his heroes.†   (source)
  • In an age of irony, an earnest statement is a target.†   (source)
  • She leaned forward, earnest.†   (source)
  • Two men stood directly in front of me, one speaking with intense earnestness.†   (source)
  • This will show we are in earnest, that we are prepared to punish, but are nevertheless ready to forgive.†   (source)
  • Hennessy from apartment two-D. The pale, earnest face of her downstairs neighbor flicked on screen.†   (source)
  • So, on my momma's second night in her new house, a forty-year-old man and his thirty-three-year-old brother are fighting mean and earnest in the front yard of the very symbol of our new beginning.†   (source)
  • To Salander I said that this was no training session and that Samir would pound her in bloody earnest.†   (source)
  • "Think thou so?" she said, her dark eyes earnest.†   (source)
  • She looked at him, earnest suddenly.†   (source)
  • They earnestly claimed to be the terrified victims of vicious harassment by a secret cult of Satanists operating in the city's parks department, or to know of sinister tobacco-industry executives who were plotting to lace baby formula with nicotine, or to be living across the street from a nest of spider-like extraterrestrials trying to pass as a nice family of Korean immigrants.†   (source)
  • I must have been an interesting sight, that instant, big shaggy monster intense and earnest, bent like a priest at his prayers.†   (source)
  • But I sneaked around to her house that night just to double-check her story, since that old lady had seemed so earnest.†   (source)
  • 'Never — not anybody at all,' I assured her earnestly.†   (source)
  • The dog wagged its tail and gave an earnest little yelp that sounded like brass horns.†   (source)
  • "There are lots of scholarships," she said, her forehead wrinkled into the earnest lines of sincerity.†   (source)
  • He leans toward us in earnest.†   (source)
  • His face had the quiet, earnest look of a man staring at a question.†   (source)
  • His voice goes dead earnest.†   (source)
  • (To NICK, now; earnestly) There is only one man in my life who has ever …. made me happy.†   (source)
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