How to Use contretemps in a Sentence

contretemps

noun
  • The senator dismissed his disagreement with the President as a minor contretemps.
  • That could backfire if the contretemps over Omar and Tlaib is more than a blip.
    — Fox News, 17 Aug. 2019
  • The contretemps at the library started because of some fliers.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 14 May 2022
  • At some point, on-court drama will trump off-court contretemps, almost every time.
    — Sean Gregory, Time, 15 Oct. 2019
  • The columnist left the paper, one of about a dozen staff members who quit or were fired during the contretemps.
    — New York Times, 12 Jan. 2021
  • The whole contretemps has left a lingering distrust of his family in the public’s mind.
    — New York Times, 25 Oct. 2021
  • My colleague Jesse Singal has a sane summary of the contretemps here.
    — Andrew Sullivan, Daily Intelligencer, 9 Mar. 2018
  • Waiters cast Wednesday's contretemps as isolated incidents, rather than a flare up.
    — Ira Winderman, Sun-Sentinel.com, 19 Oct. 2017
  • Despite the contretemps two weeks earlier, the collaborative spirit was back in full swing.
    — Jordan Runtagh, PEOPLE.com, 4 Apr. 2022
  • After several stories about the contretemps appeared in the local press, the company reversed course.
    — Katie Jennings, Forbes, 8 Apr. 2021
  • The contretemps over his time as dean made Professor Kagan something of an academic celebrity.
    — New York Times, 13 Aug. 2021
  • But behind the 21st century contretemps is a history that predates the musket.
    — Steve Hendrix, Washington Post, 27 July 2017
  • Despite the French protestations of outrage, analysts said there is unlikely to be any long-term fallout over the contretemps.
    — Michael Collins, USA TODAY, 29 Oct. 2021
  • The contretemps comes at potentially challenging time for Peloton.
    — Phil Wahba, Fortune, 19 Apr. 2021
  • The contretemps has served as a reminder of the perils facing corporations getting drawn into hot national debates.
    — Phil Wahba, Fortune, 2 Apr. 2021
  • Oh, and that’s the one funny thing about the contretemps featuring the Chinese government and the NBA.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 11 Oct. 2019
  • Her appeal, which the Hermitage opposed, sparked a contretemps that by some accounts contributed to her departure as director.
    — Emily Langer, Washington Post, 4 Dec. 2020
  • Avenatti, by the way, who has been dead-on in his predictions of how the Stormy-Donald contretemps would unfold, says that the president won’t serve out his first term.
    — Elizabeth Drew, The New Republic, 27 Apr. 2018
  • And the contretemps contains a revealing look at the sausage-making of investigative reporting and the sometimes murky dance between reporters and their unnamed sources.
    — Howard Kurtz, Fox News, 29 Aug. 2018
  • Its fate was one of many corporate contretemps that, BERA explained, convinced him to avoid the major music labels.
    — Amos Barshad, Wired, 27 Aug. 2020
  • For many years, geopolitical contretemps have kept most North Americans (except Canadians) from seeing the city for themselves.
    — Liesl Schillinger, New York Times, 30 May 2017
  • The longer the contretemps lasts, the worse the GOP will look to voters at a time when the nation is beginning to turn its attention to the 2018 election.
    — Michael Hiltzik, latimes.com, 8 Sep. 2017
  • Washington Post media writer Erik Wemple published an exhaustive account of the contretemps on his blog, and various womens’ sites weighed in as well.
    — Joe Pompeo, The Hive, 21 Sep. 2017
  • Understanding the gravity of the contretemps requires a glimpse into the fastidious fashion in which the NTSB does its job.
    — Faiz Siddiqui, Washington Post, 2 Apr. 2018
  • Luckily, for Patten, not to mention Washington’s hoagie-lovers, the contretemps is unlikely to be fatal to Taylor Gourmet.
    — Helaine Olen, Slate Magazine, 1 Feb. 2017
  • But the contretemps over the burkini, like that over the burqa (actually the niqab) and the hijab, or head scarf, before it, is emblematic of a deeper discomfort with religion throughout the Western world.
    — Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2016
  • Elsewhere in Cannes, the ongoing contretemps between the festival and Netflix — which, protesting its de facto ban from the event’s main competition, hasn’t brought a movie here since 2017 — may have cooled a little in recent years.
    — Justin Changfilm Critic, Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2022

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