How to Use expository in a Sentence

expository

adjective
  • Enlarge / One of the only expository cutscenes in the game comes right at the start.
    — Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 23 Feb. 2022
  • You are not being shown so much as told a story, propelled by great bursts of expository dialogue.
    — cleveland, 9 Oct. 2020
  • And even though there are stretches of stagey-sounding expository dialogue, the story manages to wheel along at a clip.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 12 Sep. 2025
  • The film is obvious in telegraphing its spooky sequences and its expository ones.
    — J. Kim Murphy, Variety, 3 Sep. 2025
  • Both pay lip service to it in clunky expository speeches that conveniently arise.
    — Courtney Howard, Variety, 29 Mar. 2022
  • But a good expository text would explain why the boy is sad, and how feelings can appear differently on the outside.
    — Kristen Rogers, CNN, 15 Apr. 2020
  • Stuhlbarg isn’t the only performer let down by Dopesick’s expository instincts.
    — Jen Chaney, Vulture, 15 Oct. 2021
  • Deaths and major confrontations pass by in a couple of minutes, while more expository scenes linger for longer than necessary.
    — Nicolette Munoz, Los Angeles Times, 14 Sep. 2019
  • There are no clumsy expository scenes of men and women in white lab coats trying to convince the audience that such a thing is possible.
    — Mike Scott, NOLA.com, 17 Jan. 2018
  • The photo is the photo but the need to proclaim the apparent deception is part and parcel of the expository nature of her work.
    — Michelle Tea, Harper's magazine, 22 June 2019
  • There are times when the expository notes outshine the stories, opening up new philosophical worlds that the narratives failed to do.
    — Sheon Han, The New Republic, 23 Feb. 2021
  • Polley, who also wrote the screenplay, is sparing with expository details.
    — Esther Zuckerman, Time, 14 Sep. 2022
  • No expository dialogue about not being able to speak Spanish.
    — Los Angeles Times, 13 June 2021
  • For some expository reason that the show does nothing to foreshadow or explain, Lucianne grows tender.
    — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 28 Sep. 2021
  • His diary entries tend to be flatly expository, lending his account the feel of a chronicle rather than a genuine narrative.
    — Mike Fischer, Detroit Free Press, 29 July 2017
  • But just as often his actors are rooted to the carpet like floor lamps, listening to yet another discursive expository passage.
    — Jordan Riefe, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Sep. 2017
  • From the first Avengers onward, each single movie has been obliged to carry a narrative and expository burden that can threaten to eclipse the film's discrete purpose.
    — Angela Watercutter, WIRED, 26 Apr. 2018
  • Yet the book medium, which favors the expository side of Paglen’s practice, can make his artworks feel subordinate to his research.
    — Louis Bury, ARTnews.com, 1 May 2026
  • Wiest plays a prison educator who holds her sons in contempt; her acute awareness of just how precisely her child has failed his potential and his town comes out in bits of expository dialogue.
    — Daniel D'addario, Variety, 10 Nov. 2021
  • And the most deadly and unexpected moment of the book is never explained or justified, even when the big baddie delivers his expository speech.
    — Alex Davies, WIRED, 27 Aug. 2019
  • There's an art to making expository dialogue sing, and Strong accomplishes it with the aid of the animators.
    — Christian Holub, EW.com, 29 June 2021
  • There’s also good dialogue—witty and world-building, instead of merely expository.
    — Ian MacKenzie, Literary Hub, 27 May 2026
  • That cerebral approach may have worked, but low-energy cloak-and-dagger escapades and overly expository narrative drain the film of dramatic tension.
    — Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2020
  • The expository opening is a bit ham-fisted, as if the writers didn't trust their viewers enough to plunge them back into the world of Westeros without a history lecture.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 22 Aug. 2022
  • GoT has so many characters that giving us the lowdown on everyone all at once would result in expository regurgitation.
    — Rena Gross, Billboard, 24 July 2017
  • But their lack of chemistry, coupled with the absence of expository messages, instead leads to confusion over why Nick would bother with Frances, and vice versa.
    — Sonia Rao, Washington Post, 18 May 2022
  • Even with a few overcooked or clumsily expository moments, this is a tense, often exhilarating slow-burn drama that’s impossible to look away from.
    — Thr Staff, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 Jan. 2022
  • The whole device strikes me as a clumsy way for Sorkin to deliver some expository dialogue that was probably superfluous anyway.
    — Meredith Blake, Los Angeles Times, 22 Dec. 2021
  • Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon starts big and unwieldy, with a lamely expository prologue that leads into a show full of big sets, big fights, big tragedies, and big dragons.
    — Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 19 Aug. 2022
  • Occasionally, the actors prove more chilling, even in plainly expository scenes, than the actual rigmarole of horror movie tricks.
    — K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 4 June 2021

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