How to Use humorless in a Sentence

humorless

adjective
  • The cat stares back at her with his small, humorless cat face.
    — James Parker, The Atlantic, 3 May 2021
  • His art is, sure enough, humorless, albeit in a teen-age way that is kind of funny.
    — Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2024
  • In today’s mostly humorless world, there are too few top-of-the-line satirists.
    — Richard E. Vatz, Baltimore Sun, 9 Jan. 2024
  • The most obvious piece of advice is not to be grim and humorless.
    — Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 12 Aug. 2021
  • Valente’s face went blank and a sudden humorless fire appeared on it.
    — Greg Jackson, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2021
  • Critics jumped all over the idea, labeling the women hairy-legged and humorless.
    — Karen Heller, Washington Post, 23 May 2018
  • In fifth grade my homeroom teacher was William Younger, a prim, rather humorless man.
    — Dahlia Bazzaz, The Seattle Times, 3 May 2017
  • Cue scenes of humorless mid-air wrestling, shake vigorously, wait for the sequel.
    — Joshua Rothkopf, EW.com, 21 Oct. 2022
  • Righting wrongs — and there are always more than enough to choose from — is virtuous, if sometimes humorless.
    — Washington Post, 13 Jan. 2022
  • These sequels weren’t humorless, but their jokes served to emphasize the crew’s camaraderie.
    — Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 25 June 2021
  • Anarumo offered a humorless chuckle when asked about the topic on Monday.
    — Michael Niziolek, cleveland, 25 Jan. 2023
  • Her style, though largely humorless, is fluent and sharply focused, with paragraphs that flow at the brisk pace of an adventure novel.
    — Guy Denton, National Review, 20 Jan. 2024
  • Winners droned on with a laundry list of thank-yous, reminiscing with obscure anecdotes and humorless jokes.
    — Merrie Spaeth, WSJ, 9 Aug. 2023
  • The latter often adopt a scolding, humorless tone toward those who could possibly believe such things.
    — Will Stephenson, Harper's Magazine, 14 Aug. 2023
  • Cecsarini’s Cecil is tired and dour, a humorless apparatchik who pulls strings.
    — Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4 Feb. 2018
  • Pop-culture depictions of the ballet world may paint its artists as humorless (and underfed, and oversexed).
    — New York Times, 5 Feb. 2021
  • That elicited a laugh from the audience, men being the only acceptable punchline to the humorless scolds in the crowd.
    — John Hirschauer, National Review, 14 Oct. 2019
  • Contrary to popular belief, the Swiss are not humorless or repressed.
    — Adam H. Graham, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 May 2018
  • What’s strange is that the social media giant stands by its humorless AI filter’s judgment.
    — Kyle Mann, WSJ, 21 Oct. 2020
  • There is much eye-gouging, throat-stabbing, and calf-slashing along the way; this movie is not for the faint of heart, and most of its violence is grimly humorless.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, TIME, 5 Apr. 2024
  • Here — sneakily, playfully, like a kid planting a whoopee cushion on a humorless teacher’s chair — is where the boredom comes in.
    — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 19 Sep. 2023
  • The Yankees have won more titles than any other franchise in sports, which is why the Yankees are the most humorless franchise in sports.
    — Devin Gordon, The Atlantic, 1 Apr. 2021
  • And just generally, Kylo’s been a rather humorless emo leader of a fascist movement.
    — James Hibberd, EW.com, 5 Dec. 2019
  • Yet writers are eager to join in the jokes about the humorless prude who wants to stifle academic freedom, rather than trying to understand the whole story.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 7 Dec. 2010
  • The show stealer turns out to be a deadpan Andre Braugher, playing the squad’s gay, black captain as an admirable but humorless father figure.
    — Alexandra Samuel, WSJ, 27 Oct. 2017
  • To put Muslim women in a punk band would challenge the stereotype that Muslim women are submissive, quiet, humorless.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 26 May 2024
  • Soon the Baxters and the humorless Dutch couple who unwisely joined them are running for their lives, pursued by the evil O’Neills.
    — Sarah Lyall, New York Times, 27 May 2022
  • And losing to the Jets — especially these hapless Jets, led by the humorless Adam Gase — is never an acceptable outcome.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Jan. 2021
  • A lot of money has been poured into selling VR as the future of work, with humorless videos of Mark Zuckerberg advancing a bleak vision of face-sized cubicles.
    — Mikhail Klimentov, Washington Post, 14 Sep. 2022
  • Both groups are cast as humorless scolds, solidifying the loyalty of MAGA types who think of themselves as in on a joke the media does not understand.
    — Dan Brooks, New York Times, 7 Oct. 2020

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