How to Use bossa nova in a Sentence

bossa nova

noun
  • By injecting the song with a bossa nova cadence, Laufey made the Carey standard her own while remaining true to its core.
    — Melissa Ruggieri, USA Today, 31 Jan. 2026
  • And then there’s his fascinating key signatures, and chord changes, and the influence of Brazilian bossa nova.
    — Michael Barnes, Austin American Statesman, 8 Jan. 2026
  • In any case, though the bossa nova craze had begun to fade in America, the 47-year-old composer agreed to record with Regina.
    — Lily Goldberg, Pitchfork, 13 June 2026
  • Rhythms of bossa nova and Brazilian funk cascade from overhead speakers into the narrow Adams Morgan space.
    — Elazar Sontag, Washington Post, 26 Feb. 2026
  • One lovely sequence sees an outdoor lunch at the lodge turn into an impromptu dance party with a live musician singing some cheerfully inauthentic bossa nova.
    — Guy Lodge, Variety, 22 Feb. 2026
  • Brazil loves the toys and the franchise, so look for Teela and He-Man to do the bossa nova there; Galitzine and Knight recently did a tour there last week.
    — Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 3 June 2026
  • The keyboardist and singer-songwriter began his career in bossa nova, but quickly took flight and developed a deeply personal, cosmopolitan musical language of his own.
    — Thania Garcia, Variety, 7 Aug. 2025
  • The Chiefs open with the J’s Friday night in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is patently idiotic, but at least the loser can blame it on the bossa nova.
    — Nick Canepa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Aug. 2025
  • While Bad Bunny’s previous albums also fused different genres — including bossa nova, mambo, rock, merengue and more — this album’s melange was more homegrown.
    — Maria Sherman, Chicago Tribune, 2 Jan. 2026
  • The 13-track record sees the New York native expertly float tales of love, heartbreak, positivity, and frustration over a dreamy bed of smooth soul, R&B, and bossa nova melodies.
    — Staff Author, EW.com, 31 Aug. 2025
  • Other excursions focus more on Brazilian and Carioca culture, like a bossa nova history walking tour or a soccer game at the legendary Maracanã Stadium.
    — Hannah Walhout, Travel + Leisure, 18 Oct. 2025
  • His design for the Fasano looks back to the late 1950s and early 60s—a time when Ipanema emerged as Rio's coolest neighborhood, in the early days of a new sound called bossa nova, which was born in this part of town.
    — Hannah Walhout, Travel + Leisure, 18 Oct. 2025
  • That’s fair, for in many ways Venables’s music — with its operatic heights and meditative chants, its detours from classical through bossa nova and Irish jig — is the soul of the thing, revealed in all its richness and variety by the hugely gifted ensemble.
    — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 5 Dec. 2025
  • Antônio Carlos Jobim had already penned most of the songs that define his legacy as the father of bossa nova when Elis Regina showed up at his door in February 1974, three-year-old son in tow, to record Elis & Tom.
    — Lily Goldberg, Pitchfork, 13 June 2026

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