Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use grotesque in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Grotesque means distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal, especially in a hideous way. Example: “There is screaming, a grotesque, awful screaming coming from many human mouths, coming from somewhere down the main road.”

Examples of grotesque by meaning

adjectiveDistorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal, especially in a hideous way.

  • There is screaming, a grotesque, awful screaming coming from many human mouths, coming from somewhere down the main road.2019 April 10, qntm, “CASE HATE RED”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 141

adjectiveDisgusting or otherwise viscerally revolting.

  • Trump’s grotesque and incomprehensible fondness for Putin makes the details of any deal highly dangerous for Europe and the NATO alliance, founded to confront Russia.2024 November 9, Nick Paton Walsh, “Trump’s second term could bring chaos around the world. Will it work?”, in CNN

nounAnything grotesque.

  • Obese and largely unintelligible, Don Vito represents a working-class white male grotesque, the picture of excess.2009, Emily Chivers Yochim, Skate Life, page 128
  • He’s also the new character from Sacha Baron Cohen, the man behind Ali G, Borat and Brüno: that unholy trinity of comic grotesques that told us a lot more about ourselves than we’d like to admit.2016 February 23, Robbie Collin, “Grimsby review: ' Sacha Baron Cohen's vital, venomous action movie'”, in The Daily Telegraph (London)

verbTo make grotesque.

  • At this point, species is seen antagonistically by the subject as something intent on restricting its freedom and grotesqueing its vitality.2010, Mark Driscoll, “Introduction”, in Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque: The Living, Dead, and Undead in Japan’s Imperialism...
  • Filking also allows fans to ‘answer back’ by reworking – resisting, grotesquing or parodying – the negative media stereotypes thrown at them.2013, Mark Duffett, “Filking”, in Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture, New York, N.Y.; London...

More sentences with grotesque

  • I have no doubt Mrs Low's was the healthier option - however grotesque it may have been.2008, Charlie Allan, The Truth Tells Twice: The Life of a Buchan Farm, Birlinn. From the entry skoosh
  • Not only is Afrocentrism spawning grotesque maleducation, multiculturalism is exacerbating racial hostilities, undoing earlier racial progress.1999, Ultramontane Associates, Culture Wars, volume 19, page 49. From the entry maleducation
  • Borderlessness is a contrived crisis since, for regeneration to take place requires an orificed, profligate, grotesque body.1999, Carolyn Marvin, David W. Ingle, “Fresh blood, public meat”, in Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag…. From the entry orificed
  • In Jack London's urban gothic, the city's teratological economy comes to light in grotesque animal allegories.1998, Christophe Den Tandt, The Urban Sublime in American Literary Naturalism. From the entry teratological
  • Which grotesque auld hing-oot will the shrivelled post-menopausal slag want tae shaft?1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 252. From the entry shaft
  • Some of these are even more grotesque than the manticoras of the bestiaries.1974, Katharine Mary Briggs, The folklore of the Cotswolds, page 159. From the entry manticora
  • I felt light-headed; grotesque hallucinations materialised before me with startling vividness.1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 118. From the entry vividness
  • Better a whole trainload of invigilators than this grotesque and solitary persecutor!1926, Gerald William Bullett, The Baker's Cart: And Other Tales, page 164. From the entry trainload
  • One by one grotesque forms emerged from the jungle to creep stealthily upon the unsuspecting woman.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 193. From the entry unsuspecting
  • Moral decline of this kind produces strange and grotesque effects as it works its way, acidlike, through a society.2022 May 26, Elizabeth Bruenig, “A Culture That Kills Its Children Has No Future”, in The Atlantic. From the entry acidlike
  • "The Storm is coming," say the conspiracy theorisers whose grotesque imaginings terrified the country to attention this week.2018 August 3, Molly Roberts, “QAnon is terrifying. This is why”, in New Zealand Herald, archived from the original on 10 Jan 2019. From the entry The Storm
  • His girlfriend's name was a most grotesque inaptronym.2018, Karenlee Thompson, Flame Tip. From the entry inaptronym
  • It should not be grotesque or in any way displeasing.2008, Paul Terry Cherington, Advertising as a Business Force, →ISBN, page 361. From the entry coined name
  • These drunkalogues are our art of the grotesque.2004, James B. Nelson, Thirst: God and the alcoholic experience, page 127. From the entry drunkalogue
  • Billy and Dandy had draped a tarp over the body but the shape itself looked lumpen and grotesque.2003, Dana Stabenow, A Grave Denied, →ISBN, page 17. From the entry lumpen
  • For someone who has just produced "incestophyle" to then whine that words have no meaning is grotesque without being funny.2002 Ward Stewart, Re: Christophobia Group: alt.atheism. From the entry incestophile
  • Ken Russell's BBC film (with Vivian Pickles) and Kenneth MacMillan's Isadora ballet portrayed her as a grotesque monstre sacre.2002 January 27, Jann Parry, The Observer. From the entry monstre sacré
  • Grotesque arms and counterarms of the balance mechanism below the tunnel wrote their mathematical hieroglyphs on the big instrument panel.1986, Harold Mansfield, Vision: a saga of the sky, page 179. From the entry counterarm
  • Sometimes they are semi-human, or half-animal, and again may have a completely grotesque aspect or a huge slug-like form.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 246. From the entry sluglike
  • She sighed exhaustively, and, holding the grotesque infant close to her breast, disappeared indignantly to administer the very greatly needed motherment.1924, William John Locke, The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol. From the entry motherment
  • The old driver was hanging over the splash-board like some grotesque scarecrow, his arms dangling absurdly in front of him.1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC. From the entry splashboard
  • "It is monstrous - grotesque." "But what made him draw such an animal?" "Trade gin, I should think."1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC. From the entry trade
  • But it certainly seems unnecessary to go out of the way to invent and elaborately embroider stories so grotesque as this.1903, Factory and Industrial Management, volume 24, page 760. From the entry even Jove nods
  • But by observing the three dimensions together as one, verbivocovisually, we see that the background sound gives dialogues a more grotesque or carnivalesque sense.2023, Pais, Ana Carolina, “The Symbology of Popular Culture in Game of Thrones: Carnivalization and Tyrion's Wedding Party”, in…. From the entry verbivocovisual
  • By looking back at a past populated by beings of grotesque difference, humans could place themselves at the apical meristem—the growing tip—of the future.2020, Janet Chernela, quotee, “Life Finds A Way”, in Jonathan Elmore, editor, Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction, Rowman & Littlefield…. From the entry meristem
  • Jeffrey Toobin, a lawyer and legal commentator, called the move “a grotesque abuse of power by the president of the United States”.2017 May 10, Julian Borger, The Guardian. From the entry nondemocracy
  • One of the devices of all dictatorships is the pseudolegality of the judicial system under which the most grotesque crimes are committed.2015, Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin's Daughter, →ISBN, page 87. From the entry pseudolegality
  • Yeats's grotesque machinery of sowlths and tevishes and sheogues leaves us without a shudder; his fantasies are stage-properties of the most unillusive kind.2013, Norman A. Jeffares, W. B. Yeats. From the entry machinery
  • Under-handed, over-handed, back-handed, left-handed, right-handed, standing at grotesque angles and almost standing on their heads, the Wonders fired the ball into the basket.2008, Dick Burdette, The Waterloo Wonders, →ISBN, page 87. From the entry over-handed
  • Bush administration allies exploited the former Congressman's predatory history to spread the grotesque canard that homosexuality is a direct path to pedophilia.2006 October 15, Frank Rich, “The Gay Old Party Comes Out”, in The New York Times. From the entry blood libel
  • The grotesque body – low, corpulent, devouring, permeable, disgusting and fecund – may be contrasted with the classical body – smooth, noble, unorificed, bordered.1999, Carolyn Marvin, David W. Ingle, “Fresh blood, public meat”, in Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag…. From the entry unorificed
  • In view of this monolithic corporation-sponsored drecknesss settling on the land, it's grotesque to work up a lather about a 20-watt alternative radio station.1996 July 6, Stanley Poss, “Huge influence of big business is ever present”, in The Fresno Bee, Fresno, C.A.: The McClatchy Company…. From the entry dreckness
  • Spiders are all predatory, some even cannibalistic; they may be grotesque, even hideous to look at – although some are extraordinarily beautiful.1976, Barbara York Main, Spiders (The Australian Naturalist Library), Sydney: William Collins Publishers, →ISBN, page 12. From the entry araneophobe
  • "Franklin's grotesque mortal envelope had disappeared from the poop to seek its needful repose, if only the beworried soul would let it rest awhile.1921, Chance. From the entry beworry

Meaning of grotesque

  1. adjective Distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal, especially in a hideous way.
  2. adjective Disgusting or otherwise viscerally revolting.
  3. adjective Sans serif.

Full definition of grotesque

Questions about grotesque in a sentence

How do you use grotesque in a sentence?
Grotesque is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “There is screaming, a grotesque, awful screaming coming from many human mouths, coming from somewhere down the main road.”
What is a short sentence with grotesque?
“His girlfriend's name was a most grotesque inaptronym.”
What does grotesque mean?
Grotesque means distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal, especially in a hideous way.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grotesque (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.

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