seriousness

plural seriousnesses

1. countableuncountableThe state or quality of being serious.

   “[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   ‘Then the father has a great fight with his terrible conscience,’ said Munday with granite seriousness. ‘Should he make a row with the police […]? Or should he say nothing about it and condone brutality for fear of appearing in the newspapers?

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 18, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

   Though Bane’s sing-song voice gives his pronouncements a funny lilt, he doesn’t have any of the Joker’s deranged wit, and Nolan isn’t interested in undercutting his seriousness for the sake of a breezier entertainment.

   2012 July 18, Scott Tobias, “The Dark Knight Rises”, in AV Club, archived from the original on 23 Mar 2013

   Synonyms: earnestness, seriosity, sobriety · Antonyms: jocularity, levity, unseriousness