Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
honest-to-goodness
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ They specialize in honest-to-goodness homemade desserts.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Smile - a real honest-to-goodness ordinary, human smile.
Wiktionary
honest-to-goodness
a. (context attributive only English) real; genuine. adv. (alternative form of honest to goodness English)
WordNet
honest-to-goodness
adj. used informally especially for emphasis; "a real honest-to-god live cowboy"; "had us a high old time"; "went upriver to look at a sure-enough fish wheel" [syn: honest-to-god, old(a), sure-enough(a)]
Usage examples of "honest-to-goodness".
I parked behind a chocolate brown Jaguar, walked past four pastel Mercedes in a row, and turned at a lemon yellow BMW to trudge past a rainbow of Audis and an honest-to-goodness silver Rolls.
He and Emery Phelps, the banker, you know, were having an honest-to-goodness fight right out in the lobby.
When the telephone in the hall rang (it was Bakelite and black and had an honest-to-goodness rotary dial on the front), Mr.