How to use poignant in a sentence

17 example sentences · adjective

Poignant means sharp-pointed; keen. Example: “A poignant reply will garner more credence than hours of blown smoke.”

Examples of poignant by meaning

adjectiveNeat; eloquent; applicable; relevant.

A poignant reply will garner more credence than hours of blown smoke.

adjectiveEvoking strong mental sensation, to the point of distress; emotionally moving.

Flipping through his high school yearbook evoked many a poignant memory of yesteryear.
A particularly poignant example of this is a child called Genie (see Curtiss 1977; Rymer 1993), who was deprived of speech input and kept locked up on her own in a room until age thirteen.2004, Andrew Radford, Minimalist Syntax: Exploring the Structure of English, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN...
Hanks shepherds the young girl to safety – first brusquely, and then with a sudden outburst of affection made all the more poignant for the way it is reserved previously.2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC

adjectiveIncisive; penetrating; piercing.

His comments were poignant and witty.

More sentences with poignant

There was a poignant juxtaposition between the boys laughing in the street and the girl crying on the balcony above.From the entry juxtaposition
A poignant complaint, piercing wondersong, registering with her frail untaught soprano trembling tones in the uppermost treble-world.1980, Curtis White, Heretical Songs, page 2. From the entry wondersong
The problem is even more poignant if we consider any combination of Homo and Hetero sapiens getting married.2005, Jim Wegryn, Funny Thing about Names: An Entertaining Look at Naming in America, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 62. From the entry Hetero sapiens
'The cupboard was empty' would not be poignant at all.1951, Ivor John Carnegie Brown, I break my word, page 120. From the entry toom
Everywhere they hint at poignant confrontals, so the night wind in the forest becomes an illuminating test of character and conduct.1924, Charles B[ert] Reed, “Survivals”, in Four Way Lodge, Chicago, Ill.: Pascal Covici, page 170. From the entry confrontal
Her father's sad passing makes such memories deeply poignant, but Meadows relays them too chirpily for me to embarrass myself by getting moist-eyed.2010 July 16, Brian Viner, “Jenny Meadows: ‘I am happy for Semenya but not all the girls agree’”, in The Independent. From the entry chirpily
The oscillating strategies of annihilation, exclusionary containment, and assimilation with respect to Native Americans provide but one very poignant case and point.1997, Romand Coles, Rethinking Generosity: Critical Theory and the Politics of Caritas, page 36. From the entry case and point
That makes his struggle with the culture of omertà, the wall of silence that allowed the Mafia to prevail for decades, all the more poignant.1981 August 6, “Rebel with a Cause: The real-life story of an anti-Mafia activist in Sicily makes for a handsome film with a political…. From the entry wall of silence
Among Soloway’s congregants injured in the attack was Barbara Steinmetz, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who has become one of the most poignant symbols of the attack.2025 June 5, Grace Gilson, “Boulder’s ‘shocked and traumatized’ Jewish community takes stock of losses and strengths”, in The Times of…. From the entry Barbara
Brian Wilson made the ultimate departure last week: his death all the more poignant because he fixed LA in the world's mind as the cloudless Shangri-La it isn't.2025 June 21, Janan Ganesh, “How Los Angeles made the modern world”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times…. From the entry Shangri-La
It was a poignant scene that packed quite a punch with both champions — and plenty of observers — in tears as Federer called it a career.2023 May 18, Christopher Clarey, “Even as He’s Out, Rafael Nadal Will Always Be a Part of the French Open”, in The New York Times. From the entry pack a punch
During the whole of the previous night Clarry heard her creaking with poignant, uneasy awareness; sleeping on her deck, he had gained a smattering of her timbery language.1957, Simon Kent [pseudonym; Max Catto], Ferry to Hongkong, London: Hutchinson, page 119. From the entry timbery

Meaning of poignant

adjective Sharp-pointed; keen.
adjective Neat; eloquent; applicable; relevant.
adjective Evoking strong mental sensation, to the point of distress; emotionally moving.

Full definition of poignant

Questions about poignant in a sentence

How do you use poignant in a sentence?: Poignant is used as an adjective. For example: “A poignant reply will garner more credence than hours of blown smoke.”
What is a short sentence with poignant?: “His comments were poignant and witty.”
What does poignant mean?: Poignant means sharp-pointed; keen.

Adapted from Wiktionary: poignant (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: 2026-09-02

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