How to Use histrionic in a Sentence

histrionic

adjective
Definition of histrionicnext
Synonyms for histrionicnext
  • Denis bolted down the stairs in what seemed to me like histrionic distress.
    — Bill Buford, The New Yorker, 6 Apr. 2020
  • There is no histrionic sweetness, just a tamarind undertow, a kiss of lime and brine from knots of dried shrunken shrimp.
    — Ligaya Mishan, New York Times, 14 Dec. 2017
  • The frontman navigates the rest of the album in a histrionic frenzy, as if the ghosts of old flames as well as those of New Order and the Cure and the rest of the post-punk canon are out to get him.
    — Billboard Staff, Billboard, 22 Nov. 2017
  • The histrionic burden falls heaviest on Lock, who cannot be said to emerge unscathed.
    — Dennis Harvey, Variety, 4 Apr. 2024
  • Opposition to the project, loud and histrionic, has come from a variety of quarters.
    — Hari Kunzru, The New York Review of Books, 8 Sep. 2020
  • The true-crime memoir’s preoccupation with the stormy inner life of its author doesn’t have to be histrionic.
    — Laura Miller, Slate Magazine, 15 Aug. 2017
  • Even the bass solos sung by Frank Mitchell benefited from sounding less like a histrionic sermon and more like a heart-to-heart message.
    — David Patrick Stearns, Philly.com, 18 June 2017
  • The knowingly histrionic zoomer soap opera has become a slasher movie.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 14 Mar. 2022
  • Bruce Cabot, while not astonishing in his histrionic ability, does ably as the hero.
    — Thr Staff, The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Mar. 2018
  • In fact, the story owes less to magical realism than to histrionic crime dramas.
    — Elizabeth Winkler, New York Times, 19 Jan. 2018
  • Hence the histrionic headlines announcing Mr. Graham’s about-face atop stories that fail even to mention the about-face of his opponents.
    — Barton Swaim, WSJ, 29 Sep. 2020
  • On Monday evening, the former president sent out a histrionic press release.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 9 Aug. 2022
  • Like Napoleon himself, Maguire had legions of detractors, and made many enemies during his long run as offstage king of the histrionic boards.
    — Gary Kamiya, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 July 2021
  • Both Wu and Camp come off a bit histrionic, as if their desire to play to the rafters (an admittedly difficult task in the Ahmanson) subsumes anything else.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 7 Nov. 2022
  • However, this works better, and Cecily is great as the histrionic dog owner.
    — Alexis Pereira, Vulture, 27 Feb. 2022
  • Remember her histrionic thumbs down on the minimum wage?
    — Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 1 Oct. 2021
  • That, roughly speaking, is the thesis of a group of writers who, since Trump’s election in 2016, have chastised the left for its supposedly histrionic excesses.
    — Ryu Spaeth, The New Republic, 25 Nov. 2019
  • It’s been a histrionic season for the cast at News Corp., particularly its mainstage production at Fox News.
    — Thr Staff, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Dec. 2023
  • That may sound a tad histrionic; politicians have always been in the business of swaying opinion, and propaganda has always been part of geopolitics.
    — Chris Wheatley, Longreads, 12 Mar. 2024
  • On the right, there’s a parallel, if more histrionic, insistence that the Democrats and the liberal establishment comprise some sort of tyrannical front.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 30 Aug. 2022
  • And their histrionic mother Shelly (Judith Light) has embraced life as an amateur actor.
    — Robyn Bahr, Billboard, 18 Sep. 2019
  • And at a time when politics seems to be downright histrionic in many parts of the world, Germany’s election campaign has felt surprisingly soporific.
    — Yascha Mounk, Slate Magazine, 13 Sep. 2017
  • Voters remain fatigued after the histrionic battle between Macron and Le Pen.
    — Isobel Thompson, The Hive, 19 June 2017
  • Running is not an attractive sport, other than the violent beauty of sprinters or the histrionic slow motion of runners in, say, Chariots of Fire.
    — Matthew Batt, Outside Online, 13 Oct. 2015
  • For those counting, this is the fourth cycle Democrats have made histrionic claims of external threat, internal menace and political demise.
    — Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 3 Nov. 2022
  • But another classic fantasy property this year changed the race of some of its primary characters, and there weren't histrionic op-eds or an avalanche of hateful tweets.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 9 Oct. 2022
  • North Korea, however, issues an unrelenting stream of histrionic threats that comport with its recklessness in the shelling of...
    — Mark Helprin, WSJ, 30 Apr. 2017
  • Bearded and stocky, Zohar has a lilting baritone and an open, histrionic personality that comes across as charming.
    — Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, 24 June 2019
  • And his final death scene, of course, was his histrionic suicide, which was also performative and intended for an audience.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Feb. 2023
  • Some of the encounters — such as one in which Lola and T heap their own misplaced fury on another pathetic patient played by Marilyn Torres — are histrionic.
    — Peter Marks, Washington Post, 20 May 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'histrionic.' 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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