How to Use anodyne in a Sentence

anodyne

1 of 2 adjective
  • The list, the center of the plot, should chill the blood but the song is merely anodyne.
    — David Benedict, Variety, 20 June 2023
  • The germ of the conspiracy theory had to do with one of the most anodyne parts of my job.
    — Benjamin Hart, Daily Intelligencer, 17 June 2018
  • So far, no one seems to know quite what to post on Threads, though the dominant tone is anodyne and sincere.
    — Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker, 8 July 2023
  • At even the most anodyne applause lines the Democrats remain seated.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 12 Feb. 2018
  • Among those watching the sunset, plenty seemed to have more anodyne reasons.
    — Henry Wismayer, Washington Post, 29 Aug. 2022
  • The court's order came in an anodyne statement with no dissents - just the kind of thing legal experts say the court strives for.
    — Author: Robert Barnes, Ann E. Marimow, Anchorage Daily News, 27 Nov. 2019
  • Chamberlain, for one, held West's anodyne nature against him.
    — Jack McCallum, SI.com, 12 Oct. 2017
  • Whether this shift toward a more anodyne, algorithmic ethos is a good thing, of course, depends on your vantage point.
    — New York Times, 17 Feb. 2021
  • But that seems to be an anodyne way of saying that the exact nature, cause, and solution to burnout aren't entirely clear.
    — Whizy Kim, refinery29.com, 28 Sep. 2021
  • The backlash clouded what is normally a pretty anodyne event.
    — Annalisa Merelli, Quartz, 27 Sep. 2019
  • In a sea of increasingly anodyne and wearable high fashion, Dossena goes his own way.
    — Rachel Tashjian, Harper's BAZAAR, 3 Mar. 2023
  • Sure, Grok’s rivals may be annoyingly anodyne and prone to playing it safe, but there’s a reason for that.
    — David Meyer, Fortune Europe, 6 Nov. 2023
  • The most anodyne events are freighted with the possibility of, well, anything.
    — Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2019
  • The auto industry may soon be usurped by an anodyne fleet of robo-taxis, but the final days are turning into a bit of a party for petrolheads.
    — Kyle Stock, Bloomberg.com, 14 July 2017
  • But this anodyne sentiment is too vague and banal to explain anything, much less carry a book, and Gladwell knows it.
    — Jennifer Szalai, New York Times, 4 Sep. 2019
  • India’s mostly anodyne response to each attempt has reflected a state of denial.
    — Niharika Sharma, Quartz, 5 Apr. 2023
  • The art was of the anodyne motel variety — an old-masters-esque tableau, a canvas of a zebra standing in a forest.
    — Matthew Shaer, New York Times, 12 June 2017
  • Initially the murals arranged by Paint the Void were anodyne by design.
    — Ryan Kost, SFChronicle.com, 27 Sep. 2020
  • At the start, those exterior shots of the house at 704 Hauser Street seem so anodyne.
    — Vulture, 6 Dec. 2023
  • Superhero battles were fairly anodyne and would always result with the hero cleanly winning.
    — Dan Gvozden, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 June 2023
  • Triangle of Sadness critiques class in a dull, Marxist way that is almost anodyne.
    — Armond White, National Review, 27 Jan. 2023
  • The Port, which is overseen by the county, issued its own anodyne statement at the time, never conceding any role in the problem.
    — Sean Patrick Cooper, Rolling Stone, 24 Nov. 2025
  • This season of The Golden Bachelor is shaping up to be the most anodyne viewing of the fall.
    — Ali Barthwell, Vulture, 9 Oct. 2025
  • It’s meant to be like soda — kind of empty pop calories — to lull you into the seemingly anodyne sounds of the Saja Boys.
    — Charlie Harding, Vulture, 13 Mar. 2026
  • Though it is couched in the anodyne language of a corporate news release, the document’s message should come as a shock to everyone in the media business.
    — Farhad Manjoo, New York Times, 29 June 2016
  • The resulting residence is a model of contemporary style (though the slightly anodyne perfection might leave you a bit cold).
    — Condé Nast Traveler, 20 Oct. 2017
  • The narrator is to have no part in the suicide other than offering emotional support—but what could such an anodyne phrase mean in the context of imminent death?
    — Sam Sacks, WSJ, 4 Sep. 2020
  • American Eagle will probably create a more anodyne campaign to follow this one.
    — Richard Kestenbaum, Forbes.com, 13 Aug. 2025
  • Ogles, who represents the district that the Covenant School is located in, was quick to offer a bland, anodyne statement in response.
    — Tori Otten, The New Republic, 27 Mar. 2023
  • For the most part, its contents—lists of instructions and precautions, a diagram of the drug’s molecular structure—make for anodyne reading.
    — Jonathan Zittrain, The New Yorker, 23 July 2019

anodyne

2 of 2 noun
  • The first inning began with the anodyne, at least by the standards of what was to come.
    — Alan Blinder, New York Times, 10 Oct. 2019
  • Big moves, really, for two people who are best known for being anodyne.
    — Rebecca Farley, refinery29.com, 2 July 2018
  • All of that techno-wizardry is fine and well, but there's always a danger that the end product feels cold or anodyne.
    — Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica, 17 Sep. 2017
  • Such films taught audiences how to keep Christmas in an anodyne manner that was designed not to give offense.
    — Terry Teachout, WSJ, 20 Dec. 2018
  • Stanford University tries to buy her silence with a few park benches and an anodyne plaque.
    — Christine Emba, Twin Cities, 2 Oct. 2019
  • During this dark time, vodka was Caron's anodyne; her histrionics were tabloid fodder; and a song of love was a sad song, indeed.
    — Lili Rosenkranz, Town & Country, 17 July 2014
  • But then there is the anodyne Orange County dialect in Dirty John.
    — Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, 1 June 2018
  • That haze has led to a drawback of even the most anodyne of celebrations honoring Black achievement.
    — Adam Harris, The Atlantic, 19 Feb. 2026
  • In Oliver’s poems, seeing is also feeling and both become an overwhelm for which language is a slight anodyne or ease.
    — Natalie Diaz september 11, Literary Hub, 11 Sep. 2025
  • Even an anodyne softball game between Sanders’s staff and members of the press became a source of (minor) controversy.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 28 Aug. 2019
  • Rather than an anodyne highway through the urban hinterlands where dealerships cluster, there’s a sinuous track.
    — Kyle Stock, Bloomberg.com, 26 Feb. 2018
  • Maduro’s administration sends a stream of anodyne images as protesters send out up-to-the-minute updates of arrests and violence.
    — Nathan Crooks, Bloomberg.com, 3 May 2017
  • Walker has a presence both intimidatingly sleek and strangely anodyne.
    — Boris Kachka, The Cut, 5 Feb. 2018
  • Each spread offers an anodyne expression accompanied by a blocky, straightforward illustration that, when the next page unfolds, takes a cockamamie new form.
    — Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 8 June 2018
  • Many viewers may have heard them as anodyne; others likely reacted a bit like Mike Myers did standing next to Kanye West 12 years ago.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 13 Sep. 2017
  • The game’s anodyne subject and photogenic appearance make those images and clips immediately appealing.
    — Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 22 Oct. 2019
  • Santa Clausification’—the softening of a public figure’s profile into something more anodyne and broadly acceptable.
    — Osita Nwanevu, The New Republic, 25 Sep. 2019
  • Even something as theoretically anodyne and broadly popular as net neutrality is a partisan football these days, endlessly kicked, carried, and thrown back and forth.
    — Kate Cox, Ars Technica, 5 Nov. 2019
  • So as anodyne as the choice of artists might be, tonight’s Vance Joy show masks a surprisingly risky move for a pair of companies that are at the forefront of a larger conversation about privacy and user safety.
    — Peter Rubin, WIRED, 30 May 2018
  • But environmental groups fear that Abe and the G-20 would produce an anodyne communique that failed to grasp the seriousness of the crisis facing the planet.
    — Washington Post, 28 June 2019
  • And Wiig’s anodyne lilt as Sandra perfectly captures the push and pull between the system’s algorithmic instincts and the more human trappings of its operators.
    — Michael Andor Brodeur, BostonGlobe.com, 10 May 2018
  • Gates became an important player on the campaign, striking up a friendship with Reince Preibus and managing many of the anodyne responsibilites of a political operation.
    — Benjamin Hart, Daily Intelligencer, 30 Oct. 2017
  • For an affair as necessarily anodyne as a royal wedding, the message was surprisingly political and surprisingly, well, religious.
    — Tara Isabella Burton, Vox, 20 May 2018
  • Balcony tables overlook the civilized debauchery below, and the soundtrack is a mix of the usual anodyne electropop wallpaper and Rat Pack dance remixes, the latter a diabolical genre designed to drive you out of your mind.
    — Mike Sula, Chicago Reader, 20 Sep. 2017
  • Andreas writes, dismayed by the critical desire for stylistic polish, for harmony and nuance, for an anodyne realism that manipulates the reader into positions of quasi-philosophical profundity.
    — Merve Emre, The New York Review of Books, 6 June 2019
  • But the thirty-seventh President looks like a model of restraint when compared with the forty-seventh, and his supposedly incendiary commentary anodyne by contrast to what emanates daily from the current occupant of the White House.
    — Ruth Marcus, New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2025
  • Anyway, these square huts with their anodyne, early-1960s architecture, ubiquitous at the end of almost every interstate exit ramp in the American South, have a reputation for folksiness and American grit — unfazed by natural disasters.
    — Will Bunch, Philly.com, 24 Apr. 2018

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