How to Use histrionic in a Sentence

histrionic

adjective
  • This may sound like the setup for a histrionic sci-fi soap opera.
    — Judy Berman, TIME, 17 Jan. 2025
  • These two are rarely histrionic.
    — Noel Murray, Vulture, 24 Sep. 2025
  • Denis bolted down the stairs in what seemed to me like histrionic distress.
    — Bill Buford, The New Yorker, 6 Apr. 2020
  • The knowingly histrionic zoomer soap opera has become a slasher movie.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 14 Mar. 2022
  • The histrionic burden falls heaviest on Lock, who cannot be said to emerge unscathed.
    — Dennis Harvey, Variety, 4 Apr. 2024
  • In fact, the story owes less to magical realism than to histrionic crime dramas.
    — Elizabeth Winkler, New York Times, 19 Jan. 2018
  • Opposition to the project, loud and histrionic, has come from a variety of quarters.
    — Hari Kunzru, The New York Review of Books, 8 Sep. 2020
  • Bruce Cabot, while not astonishing in his histrionic ability, does ably as the hero.
    — Thr Staff, The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Mar. 2018
  • The true-crime memoir’s preoccupation with the stormy inner life of its author doesn’t have to be histrionic.
    — Laura Miller, Slate Magazine, 15 Aug. 2017
  • On Monday evening, the former president sent out a histrionic press release.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 9 Aug. 2022
  • As a piece of political rhetoric, the word has become numbingly histrionic.
    — Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker, 24 Jan. 2025
  • Matthews, widely rated a top six overall prospect in the country, had a histrionic announcement at Aquinas.
    — Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 15 May 2026
  • However, this works better, and Cecily is great as the histrionic dog owner.
    — Alexis Pereira, Vulture, 27 Feb. 2022
  • Bechdel recalls bursting into tears reading these lines, while also poking fun at herself as lightly histrionic for having done so.
    — Sarah Blackwood, The New York Review of Books, 6 July 2022
  • His father was a histrionic type, eternally crouched against imagined (and experienced) tragedy.
    — Robin Romm, Wired, 11 Mar. 2020
  • Even the bass solos sung by Frank Mitchell benefited from sounding less like a histrionic sermon and more like a heart-to-heart message.
    — David Patrick Stearns, Philly.com, 18 June 2017
  • And his final death scene, of course, was his histrionic suicide, which was also performative and intended for an audience.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Feb. 2023
  • With trombones and tuba anchoring the harmony, this allegro con anima lived in a histrionic-free zone.
    — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 15 Dec. 2017
  • These voters are more likely to respond to straight talk about the issues than histrionic talk about the death of American democracy, even if the fear is real.
    — Dave Anderson, Baltimore Sun, 22 July 2024
  • That may sound a tad histrionic; politicians have always been in the business of swaying opinion, and propaganda has always been part of geopolitics.
    — Chris Wheatley, Longreads, 12 Mar. 2024
  • Bearded and stocky, Zohar has a lilting baritone and an open, histrionic personality that comes across as charming.
    — Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, 24 June 2019
  • Like Napoleon himself, Maguire had legions of detractors, and made many enemies during his long run as offstage king of the histrionic boards.
    — Gary Kamiya, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 July 2021
  • And their histrionic mother Shelly (Judith Light) has embraced life as an amateur actor.
    — Robyn Bahr, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Sep. 2019
  • But another classic fantasy property this year changed the race of some of its primary characters, and there weren't histrionic op-eds or an avalanche of hateful tweets.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 9 Oct. 2022
  • For those counting, this is the fourth cycle Democrats have made histrionic claims of external threat, internal menace and political demise.
    — Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 3 Nov. 2022
  • But across the country candidates are being encouraged to race rightward and to engage in increasingly histrionic displays of rage.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 18 Feb. 2022
  • Voters remain fatigued after the histrionic battle between Macron and Le Pen.
    — Isobel Thompson, The Hive, 19 June 2017
  • Crucially, the show’s histrionic extravagance had a purpose in illustrating the life-or-death stakes of youthful emotion.
    — Alison Herman, Variety, 8 Apr. 2026
  • And at a time when politics seems to be downright histrionic in many parts of the world, Germany’s election campaign has felt surprisingly soporific.
    — Yascha Mounk, Slate Magazine, 13 Sep. 2017
  • But Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s direction steers toward the histrionic.
    — Maya Phillips, New York Times, 24 Oct. 2019

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