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earnest
used in The Mill on the Floss

18 uses
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Definition
characterized by sincere belief

or:

intensely or excessively serious
  • Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned her head on one side.
    1.9 -- Book 1 Chapter 9 -- To Garum Firs (38% in)
  • "It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'cause out and putting 'cause in again," said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket and looking at them earnestly, "but it 'ud be a pity for you to go away without seeing it.
    1.9 -- Book 1 Chapter 9 -- To Garum Firs (29% in)
  • Mr. Broderip's amiable beaver, as that charming naturalist tells us, busied himself as earnestly in constructing a dam, in a room up three pair of stairs in London, as if he had been laying his foundation in a stream or lake in Upper Canada.
    2.1 -- Book 2 Chapter 1 -- Tom's "First Half" (27% in)
  • Meanwhile Tom, who had for the first time sent a poisoned arrow into Philip's heart, had returned to the carriage-house, where he found Mr. Poulter, with a fixed and earnest eye, wasting the perfections of his sword-exercise on probably observant but inappreciative rats.
    2.4 -- Book 2 Chapter 4 -- "The Young Idea" (84% in)
  • Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite earnestly.
    2.6 -- Book 2 Chapter 6 -- A Love-Scene (82% in)
  • When Tom entered she did not speak, but only went up to him, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him earnestly.
    2.7 -- Book 2 Chapter 7 -- The Golden Gates Are Passed (41% in)
  • "Then I hope you'll help me do it, uncle," said Tom, earnestly.
    3.3 -- Book 3 Chapter 3 -- The Family Council (94% in)
  • "But, uncle," said Tom, earnestly, "I don't see why the Latin need hinder me from getting on in business.
    3.5 -- Book 3 Chapter 5 -- Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster (54% in)
  • Her husband fixed his eyes earnestly on her face.
    3.8 -- Book 3 Chapter 8 -- Daylight on the Wreck (85% in)
  • She looked up at him with a grave, earnest gaze and said,— "I can't make you think better of me, Tom, by anything I can say.
    6.4 -- Book 6 Chapter 4 -- Brother and Sister (81% in)
  • "Oh, I must go," said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr. Kenn with an expression of reliance, as if she had told him her history in those three words.
    6.9 -- Book 6 Chapter 9 -- Charity in Full-Dress (69% in)
  • "You don't believe that; it is not your real feeling," said Maggie, earnestly.
    6.11 -- Book 6 Chapter 11 -- In the Lane (73% in)
  • Maggie had become more and more earnest as she went on; her face had become flushed, and her eyes fuller and fuller of appealing love.
    6.11 -- Book 6 Chapter 11 -- In the Lane (89% in)
  • Stephen spoke with deep, earnest pleading.
    6.13 -- Book 6 Chapter 13 -- Borne Along by the Tide (66% in)
  • "Remember what you felt weeks ago," she began, with beseeching earnestness; "remember what we both felt,—that we owed ourselves to others, and must conquer every inclination which could make us false to that debt.
    6.14 -- Book 6 Chapter 14 -- Waking (48% in)
  • If we—if I had been better, nobler, those claims would have been so strongly present with me,—I should have felt them pressing on my heart so continually, just as they do now in the moments when my conscience is awake,—that the opposite feeling would never have grown in me, as it has done; it would have been quenched at once, I should have prayed for help so earnestly, I should have rushed away as we rush from hideous danger.
    6.14 -- Book 6 Chapter 14 -- Waking (57% in)
  • To have taken Maggie by the hand and said, "I will not believe unproved evil of you; my lips shall not utter it; my ears shall be closed against it; I, too, am an erring mortal, liable to stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest efforts; your lot has been harder than mine, your temptation greater; let us help each other to stand and walk without more falling,"—to have done this would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge, generous trust; would have demanded a mind that...
    7.4 -- Book 7 Chapter 4 -- Maggie and Lucy (11% in)
  • Dr. Kenn, at first enlightened only by a few hints as to the new turn which gossip and slander had taken in relation to Maggie, had recently been made more fully aware of it by an earnest remonstrance from one of his male parishioners against the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt to overcome the prevalent feeling in the parish by a course of resistance.
    7.5 -- Book 7 Chapter 5 -- The Last Conflict (11% in)

There are no more uses of "earnest" in The Mill on the Floss.

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