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earnest
used in a sentence

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Definition characterized by sincere belief

or:

intensely or excessively serious
  • Both sides were deeply in earnest, even passionate.
earnest = sincere or serious
  • She has a casual, go-with-the-flow personality and doesn't appreciate his earnestness.
    • earnestness = sincerity or seriousness
  • teachers learned that I was in earnest and meant to succeed
    Booker T. Washington  --  Up From Slavery
  • Over this he prayed long and earnestly.
    Alan Paton  --  Cry, the Beloved Country
    • earnestly = sincerely with seriousness
  • He sat by the corpse all night, weeping in bitter earnest.
    Emily Bronte  --  Wuthering Heights
    • earnest = sincerity
  • the men and women who come to us for an education are in earnest;
    Booker T. Washington  --  Up From Slavery: An Autobiography
    • earnest = serious
  • How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate!
    Jane Austen  --  Pride and Prejudice
    • earnestly = sincerely
  • He shook his head earnestly.
    Rick Riordan  --  The Sea of Monsters
    • earnestly = sincerely or seriously
  • I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it to the earnestness of others.
    Nicholas Sparks  --  A Walk to Remember
    • earnestness = sincerity or seriousness
  • "No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest."
    Charles Dickens  --  A Christmas Carol
    • earnest = sincere
  • The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed her.
    Charles Dickens  --  David Copperfield
    • earnestness = excessive seriousness
  • I say that we have never sat down in earnest together to try and get at the bottom of anything.
    Henrik Ibsen  --  A Doll's House
    • earnest = seriousness
  • I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart to God:
    Charlotte Bronte  --  Jane Eyre
    • earnest = sincere
  • he grew more and more discontented with his desultory life, began to long for some real and earnest work to go at,
    Louisa May Alcott  --  Little Women
    • earnest = serious
  • "No I ain't," Lennie explained earnestly.
    John Steinbeck  --  Of Mice and Men
    • earnestly = sincerely
  • ...waiting and wondering while the Lion and the Witch talked earnestly together in low voices.
    C.S. Lewis  --  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
    • earnestly = very seriously
  • I looked to see if he were jesting; but no, the little man was in dead earnest;
    Robert Louis Stevenson  --  Kidnapped
    • earnest = sincerity
  • He looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little alarmed.
    Charles Dickens  --  Bleak House
    • earnest = intensely or excessively serious
  • Can you jest when I am so wretchedly in earnest?
    Thomas Hardy  --  Far from the Madding Crowd
    • earnest = intensely serious
  • Had Wildeve known how thoroughly in earnest Venn had become he might have been still more alarmed.
    Thomas Hardy  --  The Return of the Native
earnest = seriousness

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