How to Use MacGuffin in a Sentence

MacGuffin

noun
  • Drugs are the MacGuffin in the story.
    — Zac Ntim, Deadline, 17 Aug. 2025
  • Who killed the president, and why, is a MacGuffin in the eight-episode thriller.
    — Gqlshare, Baltimore Sun, 2025-01-29
  • In some ways, that backstory is a little bit of a MacGuffin.
    — Elissa Suh, Vogue, 2025-01-21
  • What happens if that MacGuffin is a group of human beings?
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 2024-05-22
  • The movie’s MacGuffin is a key that Russ had hidden and that Hank finds.
    — Richard Brody, New Yorker, 28 Aug. 2025
  • This too is a MacGuffin, as the detectives working the case admit the evidence does not add up.
    — David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, 2022-07-28
  • What was the process for capturing the awe, wonder, and mysticism of the central MacGuffin?
    — Josh Weiss, Forbes, 2024-12-16
  • The robots’ awakening is the common thread: machine sentience is this project’s MacGuffin.
    — Katie Baron, Forbes.com, 2025-03-27
  • Many titles took on technology, not just as a MacGuffin or Deus ex machina, but as an extension of us.
    — Thomas Page, CNN, 2024-01-29
  • In extremis, the chair became the MacGuffin from a sub-Balzac novel of petit bourgeois succession.
    — Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 2022-08-12
  • The throughline here is a hunt for a MacGuffin known as the 752, named for the year of the Talamasca’s founding.
    — Alison Herman, Variety, 26 Oct. 2025
  • Ironically, the one that proved a bridge too far for some was the one Cameron did not invent: The name of the rare metal that served as the film’s MacGuffin.
    — Chris Klimek, Smithsonian Magazine, 2022-12-22
  • The story’s MacGuffin is a manuscript that Eileen brings along to show off to Greenwood—of her forthcoming book, co-written with Thea.
    — Richard Brody, New Yorker, 17 Oct. 2025
  • According to Deadline, the film was the MacGuffin in a bidding war between streamers, before landing at Netflix.
    — Vulture, 2023-11-26
  • And should the violent organization be in charge of the cold fusion MacGuffin everyone was chasing in Season 1?
    — Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 16 Dec. 2025
  • The MacGuffin in question is a shiny orb that’s apparently a map to the location of Thrawn’s exile, or would be if Ahsoka could activate it.
    — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 2023-08-22
  • Its premise may seem mundane as a hunt for magical space rocks, the same MacGuffin plot device that drives most popular science fiction and fantasy today, from Marvel to Zelda.
    — Gene Park, Washington Post, 2023-08-31
  • For those of us allergic to exposition dumps about why some MacGuffin needs to be retrieved or delivered or destroyed, there’s a refreshing meaninglessness to the tasks handed down by Hihi.
    — Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 2024-02-05

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