earnestness

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Earnestness has the edge over sense; science, if you want to call it that — it often amounts to magic here — just serves the drama, the philosophy and the themes.

From Los Angeles Times • May 4, 2022

Earnestness, as Yovanovitch showed, is not entirely dead in American public life.

From The New Yorker • Nov. 16, 2019

Earnestness is better than disinterest, of course, but I wish the mind-set saw drinks delivered in timely fashion and food dropped off at the appropriate temperature — not always the case.

From Washington Post • Feb. 23, 2018

Earnestness has played less successfully, in part because it is alienating, and doesn’t inspire the kind of rage or impassioned disbelief that, directed at political figures, can be its own source of entertainment and pleasure.

From New York Times • May 22, 2015

Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë