How to Use arabesque in a Sentence

arabesque

1 of 2 noun
  • She held her arms in arabesque.
  • The students practiced their arabesques.
  • That is enough space for a jeté or maybe a restrained arabesque.
    — Naaman Zhou, New Yorker, 6 Apr. 2026
  • Watching all the pirouettes and arabesques will surely work up your appetite.
    — Leena Kim, Town & Country, 15 Dec. 2019
  • The double barrel vault ceiling has stenciled sea shells and arabesques.
    — Janet Eastman, OregonLive.com, 19 Feb. 2018
  • The years of arabesques, pirouettes, and high-impact landings began to take their toll.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 28 Sep. 2019
  • An arabesque performed with a wind-milling arm contrasts with the looseness of his collapsing spine.
    — Gia Kourlas, New York Times, 4 Nov. 2022
  • But also, in the Arab world, stories often have this arabesque structure.
    — Marta Balaga, Variety, 20 Aug. 2021
  • The joke is not just his costume (long tutu and pointe shoes) but the angle of his shoulders and the height of his arabesque.
    — Alice Robb, The New Republic, 16 Oct. 2023
  • There was no decoration on the outside, no roses, no arabesques.
    — V. S. Naipaul, The New Yorker, 30 Dec. 2019
  • Even more magical than the pullout bed, though, is the arabesque staircase leading to the new penthouse space.
    — Kathleen Hackett, ELLE Decor, 16 Dec. 2022
  • Two other colleagues staged an impromptu dance-off, trading pirouettes and arabesques.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 29 Nov. 2023
  • One focuses on the delicate art of pirouettes, arabesque and croisé positions.
    — Rubén Rosario, Twin Cities, 15 Nov. 2019
  • One cover, designed by a West Point Fellow, features a sort of arabesque of artillery shells.
    — Matthew Carey Salyer, Forbes, 23 Sep. 2021
  • Growing up, Bernier used to see Nureyev dancing on the deck, turning arabesques and fouettés against the backdrop of the ocean.
    — Ross Kenneth Urken, Travel + Leisure, 14 July 2023
  • Or Anton will dive into a deep arabesque penchée only to have Cemiyon Barber swoop in and carry her off.
    — Jeffrey Gantz, BostonGlobe.com, 22 Oct. 2022
  • That being said, Act 2 presents many tests for the corps, most notably the famous crisscrossing of lines while holding a perfect arabesque.
    — Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, 19 Oct. 2017
  • Art Nouveau is crowded with the natural arabesques and patterns that seduced Haeckel.
    — The New York Review of Books, 16 Dec. 2018
  • Buika’s voice, which carries the taut, intricate arabesques and throat-tearing passion of flamenco toward rock peaks, is every bit its equal.
    — Jon Pareles, New York Times, 25 June 2019
  • Who knew that a building renowned for an interior of rich wood paneling, elaborate plaster work and metal arabesques had even more good stuff hidden?
    — Jacques Kelly, baltimoresun.com, 8 July 2017
  • The caseback is open and decorated on the back plate with Omega’s signature arabesque Côtes de Genève finish.
    — Carol Besler, Robb Report, 8 Mar. 2022
  • John La Farge’s arabesque mirror from 1883 left me with palpitations of delight.
    — Brian T. Allen, National Review, 2 Apr. 2022
  • Clad in white, the corps de ballet descends a ramp to the stage in a diagonal snaking pattern, repeating a meditative sequence of arabesques and port de bras.
    — Los Angeles Times, 17 Oct. 2019
  • At the time, a Los Angeles Times profile of Moss described her as a ballet prodigy with a perfect arabesque.
    — Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 29 Apr. 2022
  • The Coronation Sword Belt, also known as the Girdle, is again made of gold cloth and embroidered in gold thread with arabesques and scrolls.
    — Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 2 May 2023
  • Valdes balanced on one leg for what felt like eons, changing positions from arabesque to passe develope without the use of her partner, Patricio Reve.
    — Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, 19 May 2018
  • The finished volume is a funky panoply of arabesques, polygons and polyhedra, a fantasy of spikes, spines and spires, left levitating in white space or emerging spectrally from backgrounds dark as night.
    — Christoph Irmscher, WSJ, 13 Apr. 2018
  • Diamond’s voice echoes in Samba to the Reckoning, each letter of the title rendered in arabesques, swaying this way and that, like a ballerina in time.
    — Angelica Aboulhosn, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Sep. 2023
  • Ruble perfected her movements in sync with the music and the other dancers, her head tilted at just the right angle, her arabesque hitting the correct line, her discipline and note-taking clearly paying off.
    — Alexis Landau, Los Angeles Times, 25 Sep. 2024
  • Everything in the pas de deux is performed deadpan, with an occasional discordant gesture, as when the man, in profile, lunges forward and opens his mouth wide, while the woman assumes a graceful arabesque.
    — Christopher Benfey, The New York Review of Books, 2 July 2020

arabesque

2 of 2 adjective
  • The first move, the arabesque sous sous, gives a simple plank an upgrade.
    — Health Staff, PEOPLE.com, 2 Nov. 2017
  • Bettina followed these in 1971 with a group of wooden sculptures and line drawings exploring similar arabesque shapes.
    — Katherine Rochester, Artforum, 1 Apr. 2026
  • This is no surprise since the brand’s creative director, Clare Waight Keller, is fascinated with arabesque architecture.
    — Jenn Tanaka, Orange County Register, 3 Mar. 2017
  • The green, black, and coral ornamentation incorporates an arabesque design, which can be seen in Islamic and European art across many centuries.
    — Mary Elizabeth Andriotis, House Beautiful, 1 Apr. 2020
  • Fans come dressed in Chanel finery, gleaming guayaberas, or Stetsons color-coordinated with cinto piteados — leather belts stitched with arabesque designs.
    — Los Angeles Times, 15 Sep. 2019

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