noun
definition
Gravity; serious purpose; earnestness.
definition
Seriousness; reality; actuality (as opposed to joking or pretence)
verb
definition
To be serious with; use in earnest.
adjective
definition
(said of an action or an utterance) Serious or honest
definition
(with a positive sense) Focused in the pursuit of an objective; eager to obtain or do.
example
earnest prayers
definition
Intent; focused; showing a lot of concentration.
example
earnest attention.
definition
(said of a person or a person's character) Possessing or characterised by seriousness.
example
an earnest disposition
definition
Strenuous; diligent.
example
earnest efforts
definition
Serious; weighty; of a serious, weighty, or important nature; important.
Examples of earnest in a Sentence
His simple, earnest response and the conviction on his face floored her.
Preparations were made in earnest for his subjugation.
The tears started in earnest as she reached the laundry room.
Julie began crying in earnest.
In 1842 he published a treatise on The Unity of the Church, and his reputation as an eloquent and earnest preacher being by this time considerable, he was in the same year appointed select preacher by his university, thus being called upon to fill from time to time the pulpit which Newman, as vicar of St Mary's, was just ceasing to occupy.
His political career began in earnest at the opening of the War of 1812.
Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him?
They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect.
He is an earnest worshipper of the Virgin, but a bold and vigorous hater of monks and abbots.
The thought of going to college took root in my heart and became an earnest desire, which impelled me to enter into competition for a degree with seeing and hearing girls, in the face of the strong opposition of many true and wise friends.
But much time was consumed and the plan underwent several modifications before its execution began in earnest on the 16th of January.
The great concern of the time and the chief practical theme of these chapters is the building of the temple; but its restoration is only the earnest of greater things to follow, viz., the glorious restoration of David's kingdom.
It was the brilliant exhibition in November 1833 that, in modern times particularly, attracted earnest students to investigate the subject of meteors generally, and to make systematic observations of their apparitions on ordinary nights of the year.
Both at King's College and at Cambridge Maurice gathered round him a band of earnest students, to whom he directly taught much that was valuable drawn from wide stores of his own reading, wide rather than deep, for he never was, strictly speaking, a learned man.
She replaced the sweater and began hunting in earnest.
Again she lashed out with the whip - this time in earnest.
His conduct of affairs was by earnest efforts to promote education and to develop the resources of the country.
The military rule excited universal hostility; there was an earnest desire for a settled and constitutional government, and the revival of the monarchy in the person of Cromwell appeared the only way of obtaining it.
Bonaparte, with whom Tone had several interviews about this time, was much less disposed than Hoche had been to undertake in earnest an Irish expedition; and when the rebellion broke out in Ireland in 17 9 8 he had started for Egypt.
Thus, in 1480, when a Turkish fleet seized Otranto, Matthias, at the earnest solicitation of the pope, sent Balasz Magyar to recover the fortress, which surrendered to him on the 10th of May 1481.
His biographers state that he showed himself from the beginning very earnest in austere life and humility; and he became a recognized example of the virtues of a Dominican.
The scientific study of the economics of local administration is, however, in its infancy, and requires to be taken up in earnest by economists.
But he taught that the state may interfere with legal or public duties only, and not with moral or private ones; He would not have even atheists punished, though they should be expelled the country, and he came forward as an earnest opponent of the prosecution of witches and of the use of torture.
His earnest, rugged, simple style of oratory made him extremely popular, and at once secured for him a wide reputation.
But death removed him (April 30, 1555) before he could do more than give an earnest of his intentions.
He was the earnest champion of the advancement of American shipping, and advocated liberal subsidies, insisting that the policy of protection should be applied on sea as well as on land.
South camp is now named Stanhope Lines, after Mr Stanhope, who was secretary of state for war when the Barracks Act 1890 was passed and the reconstruction commenced in earnest.
In the east hostilities began in earnest in western Virginia.
He became Zwingli's best helper, and after more than a year of earnest preaching and four public disputations in which the popular verdict had been given in favour of Oecolampadius and his friends, the authorities of Basel began to see the necessity of some reformation.
He was an earnest, appreciative, independent student.
Under Elizabeth's succession he returned to England, and made earnest efforts to secure what would now be called a low-church settlement of religion.
His most formidable assailant was Johann Melchior Goeze (1717-1786), the chief pastor of Hamburg, a sincere and earnest theologian, but utterly unscrupulous in his choice of weapons against an opponent.
He had at Rome already made the acquaintance of Lord Elcho and of John Murray of Broughton; at Paris he had seen many supporters of the Stuart cause; he was aware that in every European court the Jacobites were represented in earnest intrigue; and he had now taken a considerable share in correspondence and other actual work connected with the promotion of his own and his father's interests.
When Alaric found himself once more outwitted by the machinations of such a foe, he marched southward and began in deadly earnest his third, his ever-memorable siege of Rome.
In March 1861 he was made private life, his earnest Christianity and the unrepining loyalty colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry; but his career in the old army with which he accepted the ruin of his party.
As a preacher he was vivid, eager and earnest, equally plainspoken and uncompromising when preaching to a fashionable congregation or to his own village poor.
No sooner was this effected than the project of a legislative union between the British and Irish parliaments, which had been from time to time discussed since the beginning of the 18th century, was taken up in earnest by Pitt's government.
The consent of several of the electors having been purchased by concessions, Frederick signed with Pope Nicholas V., the successor of Eugenius, in February 1448 the concordat of Vienna, an arrangement which bound the German Church afresh to Rome and perpetuated the very evils from which earnest churchmen had been seeking deliverance.
Maximilian found time to make earnest but unavailing efforts to mediate between his cousin, Philip II.
He had no sympathy with political liberalism, but throughout his long reign of forty-two years, with a constant interchange of ministries and many ministerial crises, he never had a serious conflict with the states-general, and his ministers could always count upon his fair-mindedness and an earnest desire to help them to further the national welfare.
On the other hand, he always had the highest respect for every earnest and faithful opponent of slavery, however far their special views might differ.
Innocent was a strong and earnest man of monastic temperament, but not altogether free from nepotism.
Frederick William, whose temper was by no means so ruthlessly Spartan as tradition has painted it,was overjoyed, and commissioned the clergyman to receive from the prince an oath of filial obedience, and in exchange for this proof of "his intention to improve in real earnest" his arrest was to be lightened, pending the earning of a full pardon.
The early death of his parents, which illustrated to him in the most forcible manner the unstableness of all human existence, threw a gloom over his whole life, and fostered in him that earnest piety and fervent love for solitude and meditation which have left numerous traces in his poetical writings, and served him throughout his literary career as a powerful antidote against the enticing favours of princely courts, for which he, unlike most of his contemporaries, never sacrificed a tittle of his self-esteem.
Earnest men could not disguise from themselves the moral dangers almost inevitably consequent upon them; they recognized, moreover, that many pilgrims were actuated by extremely dubious motives; and they distrusted the exaggerated value set on outward works.
In spite of great physical weakness he made several earnest speeches in behalf of these measures to save the Union.
As the middle ages drew to a close, earnest churchmen were compelled to ask themselves whether it would not be better to let the priests marry than to continue a system under which concubinage was even licensed in some districts.
His religion is, however, anything but an abstraction to the savage, and stands rather for the whole of his concrete life so far as it is penetrated by a spirit of earnest endeavour.
Incidentally the candidate is trained to perform his duties as a tribesman, but religion presides over the course, demanding earnest endeavour of an impressionable age.
While in England on public business in 1652, Clarke published Ill News from New England, which contained an impressive account of the proceedings against himself and his brethren at Lynn, and an earnest and wellreasoned plea for liberty of conscience.