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earnest

noun · adjective · verb

Simple meaning

Serious and sincere.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

urnist

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɝnɪst

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Seriousness; reality; actuality (as opposed to joking or pretence)

  2. Gravity; serious purpose; earnestness.

  3. A sum of money paid in advance as a deposit; hence, a pledge, a guarantee, an indication of something to come.

adjective

  1. with a positive sense

    Focused in the pursuit of an objective; honestly eager to obtain or do.

  2. said of a person or a person's character

    Possessing or characterised by seriousness.

  3. said of an action or an utterance

    Serious, sincere, ingenuous.

  4. said of an action or an utterance

    Serious; weighty; of a serious, weighty, or important nature; important.

  5. Intent; focused; showing a lot of concentration.

  6. Strenuous; diligent.

verb

  1. transitive

    To be serious with; use in earnest.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Seriousness; reality; actuality (as opposed to joking or pretence)

Used this way, earnest is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Playful
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Seriousness

earnest effort

Sum

earnest money

Other combinations

earnest desiregood earnestearnest prayerearnest requestearnest wishearnest attention

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • earnestlyadverbDerived adverb

    In a serious manner.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • earnest moneynounCompound term

    Money given by a buyer to a seller to bind a contract.

  • in earnestadverbCompound term

    In a serious manner.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: focused in the pursuit of an objective

in earnest

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.