How to Use contrivance in a Sentence

contrivance

noun
  • The story is filled with plot contrivances that do not fit the ending.
  • He told the story honestly and without contrivance.
  • He convinced her to go without using contrivance.
  • This is a neat contrivance and accounts for the subtle nature of the scent.
    — John Burek, PCMAG, 10 Jan. 2025
  • A lot of the things that potentially seem like contrivances turn out to be true.
    — Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 20 July 2023
  • Through a plot contrivance, Marek comes to live with Villiam.
    — New York Times, 13 June 2022
  • In this case, the sitcom Shakespeare is built around two contrivances.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 21 Dec. 2023
  • Is the format—the set, the show structure, the million contrivances—part of the joke?
    — Ruby Tandoh, New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025
  • To their credit, the producers have fun with the contrivance.
    — Brian Lowry, CNN, 12 May 2020
  • Yet Ford never falls into the trap of making that a plot contrivance.
    — Murtada Elfadl, Variety, 5 Aug. 2024
  • It should be replaced with a sprawling, soulless contrivance.
    — Noah Rothman, National Review, 3 Apr. 2025
  • The Bad Everywhere else in this episode, contrivance rules the day.
    — Erik Kain, Forbes, 2 June 2021
  • Think of this whole contrivance as a series of concentric circles.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 4 Oct. 2021
  • Beneath the contrivances of stardom, music was a way of life and even a reason to go on living.
    — Lavinia Greenlaw, WSJ, 22 Dec. 2017
  • Even those unfamiliar with the story are likely to scoff at the new plot contrivances.
    — Jon O'Brien, IndieWire, 19 Mar. 2026
  • The body-swapping contrivance is easier to believe than anything the film does with it.
    — Amy Nicholson, Variety, 10 Aug. 2022
  • To put forth this message, the film twists itself into knots of contrivance and confusion.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 30 Sep. 2023
  • As in a classic screwball comedy, the contrivances were part of the pleasure.
    — Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 19 June 2023
  • One floor above, a sister restaurant serves up limp dosas and a chicken-and-rice contrivance masquerading as biryani.
    — The Economist, 30 Sep. 2017
  • Then, in what seems nearly a plot contrivance, a cruel stepfather appeared.
    — Dan Chiasson, New Yorker, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Weisz does full justice to the tragic realism inside the contrivance.
    — Charles Taylor, Newsweek, 7 June 2017
  • Meanwhile, another product from yet another firm gets the full-course meal of a plot contrivance.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2023
  • The dialogue is overwrought, the plot contrivances are gratuitous, and the show has never been more fun.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 2 Mar. 2026
  • The movie relies a lot on flatly staged shootouts and narrative contrivances, coupled with trite tough-guy poses.
    — Noel Murray, latimes.com, 7 Sep. 2017
  • The script, also by Ahn, leans slightly too much on contrivances to nudge the relationship along.
    — Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 24 Jan. 2026
  • But contrivances now become necessary to keep some of the new supporting figures in play in a story like this.
    — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 11 May 2025
  • The builder of the applet has seeded into the applet the whole contrivance about the importance of video game playing.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 15 Mar. 2025
  • Ultimately there are a few twists too many, pushing the story into a realm of excess contrivance.
    — Dennis Harvey, Variety, 3 Mar. 2022
  • Through a contrivance of angled mirrors and canny lighting, the gap is undetectable from inside the room.
    — Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 16 May 2022
  • There’s too much contrivance on a scene-to-scene basis, and an inorganic feel to the general conceit.
    — Dennis Harvey, Variety, 31 Oct. 2025

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