How to Use grotesque in a Sentence

grotesque

1 of 2 noun
Definition of grotesquenext
Synonyms for grotesquenext
  • Floyd’s killing was grotesque, and the latest in a series.
    — Dhruv Khullar, The New Yorker, 4 June 2020
  • As activists are jailed, maimed and killed around the world, this is grotesque.
    — Darkskylady, refinery29.com, 13 Sep. 2021
  • The basic components of the tone of my films are the tragicomedy and a dash of the grotesque.
    — Leo Barraclough, Variety, 25 Aug. 2021
  • When the public learned of LaLaurie’s grotesque secret, a mob stormed the house, prompting her to flee to France.
    — Gulnaz Khan, National Geographic, 31 Oct. 2020
  • The grotesques are a delightful feature in a building that’s bristling with them.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 23 June 2018
  • Indulging in the grotesque is what has given these films their prescience.
    — Blair McClendon, New York Times, 27 Oct. 2020
  • Martin believes the Gothic revival of the 1920s likely inspired the young Ayres to add the grotesques.
    — San Antonio Express-News, 28 Mar. 2020
  • In Shostakovich’s earthier sonata, the somberness competes with the grotesque.
    — Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 16 Nov. 2021
  • All of us laughed, picturing me glowering at them like a stone grotesque on the Notre Dame.
    — Vanessa Hua, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 Feb. 2021
  • More than a few of the objects verge on grotesque and maybe ugly and will push at the limits of your taste, which is always healthy.
    — New York Times, 13 June 2021
  • Its grotesque and should not be allowed to be shown on mainstream platforms.
    — Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 3 Mar. 2022
  • And around this grotesque and horrible mask of death, the hair, the beautiful hair, still blazed like sunlight and flowed in a stream of gold.
    — Namwali Serpell, The New York Review of Books, 6 July 2022
  • The antics range from childlike—the boys don panda suits for a romp through Tokyo—to grotesque and life-threatening.
    — Travis Bean, Forbes, 30 Apr. 2022
  • Since then, the images, which range from unsettling to grotesque, have gone viral.
    — Nina Raemont, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Sep. 2022
  • On the one hand, there is the man in the office: grotesque, incoherent, malicious, dumb.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 4 Aug. 2020
  • If Washington and others do more to help, that grotesque goal can also be stymied.
    — Joshua Muravchik, WSJ, 30 Mar. 2022
  • Many of them, like Medusa, have the face of a woman but other grotesque, unnatural body parts.
    — Barbara Spindel, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 Apr. 2021
  • Unironic emotion is weak at best, grotesque at worst, and always to be hidden.
    — Kelsey Ables, Washington Post, 8 July 2022
  • Lynch put a horror button on it, adding one of his unnerving still-life grotesques.
    — Jeff Jensen, PEOPLE.com, 22 May 2017
  • The image shows a fish with its mouth being held open, showing a grotesque parasite.
    — Michael Hollan, Fox News, 23 Oct. 2021
  • But both Stan and Cleopatra are met with horrific fates, exposing the grotesque at the core of their being.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 19 Mar. 2022
  • Mapplethorpe was determined to find beauty in even the grotesque and macabre.
    — New York Times, 15 Oct. 2020
  • Deb, in a hospital gown, is attached to it, but a grotesque, dark presence pulls her back under.
    — Matt Cabral, EW.com, 8 Nov. 2021
  • Rigorous 2½-hour tour includes a close-up look at many gargoyles and grotesques.
    — Washington Post, 16 June 2017
  • On both of their faces, there is an expression of pleasure that borders on the grotesque — from the woman’s hand dangles a smartphone.
    — Brienne Walsh, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2021
  • Their hands hold a head whose translucent resin face, rendered in the manner of a Renaissance grotesque mask, will emit a Gatorade-green glow, thanks to a light inside.
    — WSJ, 3 Feb. 2022
  • The tableaux in some pictures are stagier than in others; a few push, uncomfortably, toward the grotesque.
    — New York Times, 29 July 2021
  • To be sure, the grotesque killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis did not involve a serious crime.
    — Vincent Carroll, The Denver Post, 13 June 2020
  • In a new version of the classic film noir, Guillermo del Toro’s florid art of the grotesque ends up emptying out the story rather than expanding it.
    — The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2022
  • Although the aliens that O’Neill depicted were demonic, contorted and grotesque, the objection was not to any particular image, but to his entire style.
    — George Gene Gustines, BostonGlobe.com, 13 Nov. 2022
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grotesque

2 of 2 adjective
  • The actors wore dark capes and grotesque masks.
  • The grotesque and the absurd demand their place in the halls of power, too.
    — Phil Klay, Time, 17 Aug. 2023
  • The Fly, all of which found grotesque things happening to the human form.
    — Clark Collis, EW.com, 4 June 2022
  • The greatest neo-noir ever made, and one of the most complex and grotesque.
    — Odie Henderson, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Nov. 2022
  • Much like her fashion choices, Fox bounces through the glamour and the grotesque all the same.
    — Daniel Rodgers, Glamour, 2 Jan. 2024
  • Everyone in the world that Roger elects to become a part of is grotesque.
    — K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 30 Aug. 2022
  • One of the great joys of my job is the opportunity to be grotesque and change.
    — Los Angeles Times, 18 Dec. 2022
  • The way he’d been treated, by both strangers and intimates, was grotesque.
    — Chelsey Sanchez, Harper's BAZAAR, 9 May 2023
  • These actions are too dark and grotesque and the country deeply rejects them.
    — Antonio Maria Delgado, Miami Herald, 26 Mar. 2024
  • This is a grotesque one and posing with guns has nothing to do with self-defense.
    — Mike Freeman, USA TODAY, 16 May 2023
  • But there’s humanity in revealing the grotesque, in telling the truth about the world.
    — Grace Edquist, Vogue, 8 Sep. 2023
  • But Diablo IV’s take on the genre feels more brutal and grotesque.
    — Alessandro Fillari, Ars Technica, 7 Dec. 2022
  • The movie culminates in a truly bizarre and grotesque final act that will leave you stunned.
    — Men's Health, 21 Oct. 2022
  • The friction of opposites — the grotesque and the beloved — is the soul of DiRusso’s sound and hinges on her willingness to say the quiet parts out loud.
    — Sarah Grant, SPIN, 8 Mar. 2023
  • The comedy is grotesque and blunt — Craig spends one episode with a dead snake nailed to his palm — but sneakily smart.
    — James Poniewozik, New York Times, 26 Dec. 2022
  • They were made into the shape of gnarly, knobby, sometimes grotesque … fingers.
    — Emily Heil, Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2023
  • As a lifelong Catholic, I am disturbed by some of the grotesque imagery created by the Sisters.
    — Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times, 16 June 2023
  • Analysis: Amid world crises, ‘grotesque greed’ wins out.
    — Kendra Nichols, Washington Post, 8 Aug. 2022
  • Leave aside for a moment her grotesque false equivalence.
    — Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 17 Feb. 2022
  • Trump is just the ultimate and most grotesque expression of something that’s been going on for a while.
    — David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, 6 Apr. 2022
  • And the third is, essentially, a sitcom, featuring the grotesque Chin-Kee.
    — Jamie Fisher, New York Times, 24 May 2023
  • On a dirt path behind it was an even more grotesque scene: two victims, their bodies bloating.
    — Washington Post, 7 Apr. 2022
  • The scene was a grotesque spectacle unlike anything that Crestone had seen.
    — Christopher Moyer, Rolling Stone, 26 Nov. 2021
  • Yonezu: In the comic, demons are constantly hurting people in grotesque ways.
    — Billboard Japan, Billboard, 16 Nov. 2022
  • Column: Nikki Haley’s grotesque, and wrong, attempt to link trans youth to suicide among teen girls.
    — USA TODAY, 6 June 2023
  • Thus the grotesque chaos of Twitter users acting as if one person’s good day is a personal attack against them.
    — WIRED, 1 Dec. 2022
  • The High Evolutionary’s base is a grotesque body-horror looking mess.
    — Chris Smith, BGR, 24 Nov. 2022
  • The jokes Asher scripts for himself become, in performance, tortured and grotesque rather than just flat.
    — Margaret Lyons, New York Times, 4 Jan. 2024
  • While Jason is yet to don the iconic hockey mask, his unmasked and grotesque face proves all the more abject and sinister without it.
    — Nathan Smith, Vulture, 5 Aug. 2022
  • After killing them, Alcala placed their bodies in grotesque poses, sometimes photographing them.
    — Christine Pelisek, Peoplemag, 4 Apr. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'grotesque.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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