How to Use grotesque in a Sentence

grotesque

1 of 2 noun
  • As activists are jailed, maimed and killed around the world, this is grotesque.
    — Darkskylady, refinery29.com, 13 Sep. 2021
  • Its grotesque and should not be allowed to be shown on mainstream platforms.
    — Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 3 Mar. 2022
  • Indulging in the grotesque is what has given these films their prescience.
    — Blair McClendon, New York Times, 27 Oct. 2020
  • Unironic emotion is weak at best, grotesque at worst, and always to be hidden.
    — Kelsey Ables, Washington Post, 8 July 2022
  • Lynch put a horror button on it, adding one of his unnerving still-life grotesques.
    — Jeff Jensen, PEOPLE.com, 22 May 2017
  • The grotesques are a delightful feature in a building that’s bristling with them.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 23 June 2018
  • Since then, the images, which range from unsettling to grotesque, have gone viral.
    — Nina Raemont, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Sep. 2022
  • The grotesques were decorative stone faces around the castle.
    — Adam Fox, CBS News, 14 May 2026
  • The image shows a fish with its mouth being held open, showing a grotesque parasite.
    — Michael Hollan, Fox News, 23 Oct. 2021
  • If Washington and others do more to help, that grotesque goal can also be stymied.
    — Joshua Muravchik, WSJ, 30 Mar. 2022
  • Rigorous 2½-hour tour includes a close-up look at many gargoyles and grotesques.
    — Washington Post, 16 June 2017
  • Mapplethorpe was determined to find beauty in even the grotesque and macabre.
    — New York Times, 15 Oct. 2020
  • Deb, in a hospital gown, is attached to it, but a grotesque, dark presence pulls her back under.
    — Matt Cabral, EW.com, 8 Nov. 2021
  • More recently, the trend has leaned even more surreal, even into the grotesque.
    — Emily Johnson, Architectural Digest, 18 Oct. 2025
  • The basic components of the tone of my films are the tragicomedy and a dash of the grotesque.
    — Leo Barraclough, Variety, 25 Aug. 2021
  • More than a few of the objects verge on grotesque and maybe ugly and will push at the limits of your taste, which is always healthy.
    — New York Times, 13 June 2021
  • But kinky, horny, grotesque, obsessive, meticulous, cruel — those are all good to go.
    — Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter, 11 Feb. 2022
  • In Shostakovich’s earthier sonata, the somberness competes with the grotesque.
    — Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 16 Nov. 2021
  • All of us laughed, picturing me glowering at them like a stone grotesque on the Notre Dame.
    — Vanessa Hua, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 Feb. 2021
  • Many of them, like Medusa, have the face of a woman but other grotesque, unnatural body parts.
    — Barbara Spindel, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 Apr. 2021
  • And around this grotesque and horrible mask of death, the hair, the beautiful hair, still blazed like sunlight and flowed in a stream of gold.
    — Namwali Serpell, The New York Review of Books, 6 July 2022
  • The antics range from childlike—the boys don panda suits for a romp through Tokyo—to grotesque and life-threatening.
    — Travis Bean, Forbes, 30 Apr. 2022
  • Slipknot have built a brief but already noteworthy career as connoisseurs of the gross and grotesque.
    — Matthias Clamer, SPIN, 7 Aug. 2022
  • The tableaux in some pictures are stagier than in others; a few push, uncomfortably, toward the grotesque.
    — New York Times, 29 July 2021
  • On both of their faces, there is an expression of pleasure that borders on the grotesque — from the woman’s hand dangles a smartphone.
    — Brienne Walsh, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2021
  • Gilliam is an artist of bizarre panoramas; his imagination and humor are visual — full of the dystopic, the heroic, and the grotesque.
    — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 1 Dec. 2025
  • At first glance, Godie’s work can appear childlike, her figures rendered in a cartoonish style that verges on grotesque.
    — New York Times, 21 Jan. 2022
  • Now the frog had found himself in a vulgar reality jumble, his no-frills costume wedged inside one that was far flashier and more grotesque.
    — Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 17 Apr. 2021
  • Docents show slides of the building’s whimsical and sometimes fierce stone gargoyles and grotesques, followed by an outdoor tour.
    — Washington Post, 14 July 2017
  • But both Stan and Cleopatra are met with horrific fates, exposing the grotesque at the core of their being.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 19 Mar. 2022

grotesque

2 of 2 adjective
  • The actors wore dark capes and grotesque masks.
  • The peace prize looked grotesque at the time.
    — Los Angeles Times, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The things Robin does are pretty grotesque at times.
    — Brian Davids, HollywoodReporter, 22 June 2026
  • The grotesque charade didn’t seem to belong to this world.
    — Literary Hub, 15 Dec. 2025
  • The grotesque and the absurd demand their place in the halls of power, too.
    — Phil Klay, Time, 17 Aug. 2023
  • The greatest neo-noir ever made, and one of the most complex and grotesque.
    — Odie Henderson, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Nov. 2022
  • This is a grotesque one and posing with guns has nothing to do with self-defense.
    — Mike Freeman, USA TODAY, 16 May 2023
  • The way he’d been treated, by both strangers and intimates, was grotesque.
    — Chelsey Sanchez, Harper's BAZAAR, 9 May 2023
  • One of the great joys of my job is the opportunity to be grotesque and change.
    — Los Angeles Times, 18 Dec. 2022
  • Everyone in the world that Roger elects to become a part of is grotesque.
    — K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 30 Aug. 2022
  • The Fly, all of which found grotesque things happening to the human form.
    — Clark Collis, EW.com, 4 June 2022
  • The Goombas are Gremlin-like and grotesque.
    — Wilson Chapman, IndieWire, 3 Apr. 2026
  • And so, the grotesque pas de deux between the police and the press continued.
    — Literary Hub, 27 Jan. 2026
  • The movie culminates in a truly bizarre and grotesque final act that will leave you stunned.
    — Men's Health, 21 Oct. 2022
  • Much like her fashion choices, Fox bounces through the glamour and the grotesque all the same.
    — Daniel Rodgers, Glamour, 2 Jan. 2024
  • They were made into the shape of gnarly, knobby, sometimes grotesque … fingers.
    — Emily Heil, Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2023
  • Within the horror genre, one of my favorite things to write is the idea of the grotesque feminine.
    — Literary Hub, 4 May 2026
  • But there’s humanity in revealing the grotesque, in telling the truth about the world.
    — Grace Edquist, Vogue, 8 Sep. 2023
  • One of his murder weapons was revealed among Prater’s grotesque collection.
    — Clayton Davis, Variety, 5 Sep. 2025
  • Her portrait of her mother is unflinching and often grotesque.
    — Rebecca Mead, New Yorker, 3 Sep. 2025
  • And the result at the end of the day is a truly grotesque dirty water container, which does feel like a job well done.
    — Loz Blain october 14, New Atlas, 14 Oct. 2025
  • In the meantime, grotesque monsters have overtaken the planet, killing those who’ve gone through the cryo process.
    — Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 30 Oct. 2025
  • Trump is just the ultimate and most grotesque expression of something that’s been going on for a while.
    — David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, 6 Apr. 2022
  • The finale is a suitably grotesque affair with a body count that’s impressive even by genre standards.
    — Louis Peitzman, Vulture, 27 Mar. 2026
  • The comedy is grotesque and blunt — Craig spends one episode with a dead snake nailed to his palm — but sneakily smart.
    — James Poniewozik, New York Times, 26 Dec. 2022
  • Sapkowski’s world is bawdy, violent, and grotesque.
    — Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Trump’s use of that power was typically corrupt even before that grotesque stunt.
    — St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Twin Cities, 24 Oct. 2025
  • The scene was a grotesque spectacle unlike anything that Crestone had seen.
    — Christopher Moyer, Rolling Stone, 26 Nov. 2021
  • With this latest special, fans get a peek into Squirm's colorful yet grotesque world of goop, gore and guts.
    — Lauren Giella, MSNBC Newsweek, 14 May 2026
  • The grotesque monster has somehow been fused together out of what appears to be four separate corpses.
    — Erik Kain, Forbes, 17 July 2023

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