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IN EARNEST
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I. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
In a serious manner
Example:
a play dealing seriously with the question of divorce
Synonyms:
earnestly; in earnest; seriously
Classified under:
Context examples:
He spoke and looked so much in earnest, that Anne was not surprised to see Mrs Clay stealing a glance at Elizabeth and herself.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Pike, the malingerer, who, in his lifetime of deceit, had often successfully feigned a hurt leg, was now limping in earnest.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
Up rose Snodgrass, very much in earnest.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
He saw that I was in earnest, and stooping, took my hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
He stopped, and, looking in my face, said, “Daisy, I believe you are in earnest, and are good. I wish we all were!”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Just about the same time, the sun had gone down behind the Spy-glass, and as the fog was collecting rapidly, it began to grow dark in earnest.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to be your wife?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The people you are talking to want to know your compensation requirements, and those talks will soon reach a settlement, beginning in earnest on the peach of a new moon of February 23.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking up and down the room in earnest meditation, his brow contracted, his air gloomy.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
He was standing by himself at a printshop window, with his hands behind him, in earnest contemplation of some print, and she not only might have passed him unseen, but was obliged to touch as well as address him before she could catch his notice.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
