very serious and sincere:
an earnest young man * Despite her earnest efforts, she could not find a job. * When I looked over, he was in earnest conversation with his father.
earnestly adverb:
He gazed earnestly into my eyes.
earnestness noun [U]
IDIOMS
in earnest
1 more seriously and with more force or effort than before:
The work on the house will begin in earnest on Monday. * That was when our troubles started in earnest.
2 very serious and sincere about what you are saying and about your intentions; in a way that shows that you are serious:
You may laugh but I'm in deadly earnest. * I could tell she spoke in earnest.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for earnest is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is earnest a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, earnest is tagged as adjective.
Does earnest appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — earnest appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
