Select any word on this page to check its defini­tion and pronun­ci­ation in a dic­tionary.

Click brown words for a pop-up expla­na­tion.

in earnest

[in 'e:(r) nist] = /ɪn ˈɜːʳnɪst/
pronunciation help
  1. If you do something in earnest, you treat it very seriously.
    The learner is looking for a good English dictionary because he began to learn English in earnest.
    He started to learn English pronunciation in earnest when he went abroad and saw that people could not understand him.