Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use formulaic in a sentence

13 example sentences · adjective

Formulaic means conventionalized. Example: “That TV series has become awfully formulaic in the last couple of seasons.”

Examples of formulaic by meaning

adjectiveConventionalized.

  • a formulaic greeting
  • Homeric Greeks valued clichés because not only the poets but the entire oral noetic world or thought world relied upon the formulaic constitution of thought.1982, Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy, Routledge, →ISBN, pages 23–24

adjectiveImitative; unoriginal; trite.

  • That TV series has become awfully formulaic in the last couple of seasons.
  • Neoimpressionism quickly divided viewers: did it herald an abstract future or was it a dry, formulaic dead end?2025 September 13, Jackie Wullschläger, “Portal to an abstract future or dry dead end?”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The...

More sentences with formulaic

  • The actors turned in a formulaic performance.From the entry turn in
  • The formulaic repetitiveness of filing and stuffing envelopes appeals to me in some fundamental life-affirming way.2015, Paul Beatty, The Sellout, Oneworld Publications (2016), page 106. From the entry repetitiveness
  • The protocol of the bull contains elements that appear to be formulaic by the time of John XVIII 's pontificate.1985, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, volume 23, page 14. From the entry protocol
  • But what looks like donkeywork is a necessary step in a formulaic approach, a set of prescribed practices that have their own embedded wisdom.2022, The Atlantic. From the entry donkey work
  • Knowing the syllable of the final allowed choristers to judge where to pitch the formulaic endings (evovae) that were appended to antiphons.2020, Nicholas Baragwanath, “Canto Fermo and Canto Figurato”, in The Solfeggio Tradition: A Forgotten Art of Melody in the Long Eighteenth…. From the entry euouae
  • The band delivers fresh approaches to standard zouk rhythms (even a zoukified treatment of a kadrille in "Zouk Kadrye") that never sound formulaic.1995, The Beat, volume 14, page 34. From the entry zoukify
  • One common critique of the silver fork novel was that the genre was formulaic and, thus, easily produced by any hack writer who might put pen to paper.2015, Cheryl A. Wilson, Fashioning the Silver Fork Novel, Routledge, →ISBN, page 22. From the entry silver fork novel
  • But most linguists want to be more inclusive, and allow for the possibility that a wordstring can be semantically transparent and grammatically regular, but still be formulaic.2004, Norbert Schmitt, Formulaic sequences: acquisition, processing and use, page 250. From the entry wordstring
  • Indeed, one depressing thing about gastropubs is the lack of imagination in the sector; the way, as concepts, they invariably conform to a formulaic kind of low-key, small-g urban gentrification.2008 July 3, Tony Naylor, “What makes a great gastropub?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry gastropub

Meaning of formulaic

  1. adjective Conventionalized.
  2. adjective Imitative; unoriginal; trite.

Full definition of formulaic

Questions about formulaic in a sentence

How do you use formulaic in a sentence?
Formulaic is used as an adjective. For example: “That TV series has become awfully formulaic in the last couple of seasons.”
What is a short sentence with formulaic?
“a formulaic greeting”
What does formulaic mean?
Formulaic means conventionalized.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: formulaic (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use formulaic in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/formulaic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.