overearnest

The trouble is that the world is already full of overearnest creatures who believe that great art can do nothing else.

The Smiling Genius 2010

At times, Saldaña is grandiose, overearnest — "melodramatic," one reviewer said — the inevitable consequence of youth.

Youth and Prayer 2010

She has a sense of humor, saving the book from the overearnest drama inherent in tween narratives.

Archive 2006-08-01 fusenumber8 2006

But regarding weight loss surgery and psychology — many people who do it did not really enjoy eating; they are not Paul Prudhomme, who got to 500 pounds by an honest if overearnest love of food.

Compare/Contrast: Transsexuality and Fat 2006

The book has an overearnest strain here and there, but it is a notable and highly individual contribution to humanistic scholarship.

Short Review Editors, The 1972

The overearnest person dislikes this type of humor and reacts against it by calling it ` ` in bad taste. ''

The Foundations of Personality 1921

There are lots of good reasons to grumble at this overearnest melodrama.

FlickFilosopher.com 2010

When it moved Project Runway from Bravo to Lifetime, Weinstein Company transformed the latter cable network from overearnest television for spinsters into something more chic and cheeky, or so some people said at the time.

Gawker 2008

When it moved Project Runway from Bravo to Lifetime, Weinstein Company transformed the latter cable network from overearnest television for spinsters into something more chic and cheeky, or so some people said at the time.

Gawker 2008

There is no such excuse for ABC’s Private Practice, a spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy, which is also on tonight and supposedly offers a postfeminist sensibility that is more playful and palatable than the overearnest women’s lib of the Lindsay Wagner generation.

Wednesday Melissa Silverstein 2007