How to Use marionette in a Sentence

marionette

noun
  • Think of yourself as a marionette with a string pulling you up straight from the top of your head.
    — Madelyn Fernstrom, NBC News, 4 Oct. 2019
  • Think of the pins as marionettes with nylon cords attached to their heads.
    — David Wharton, Los Angeles Times, 21 Nov. 2023
  • Out of nowhere, like a limp marionette, Dakota would drop to the ground.
    — Eli Cahan, Rolling Stone, 16 Oct. 2025
  • Spivey is the last to leave the stage, using a deeply-bent-knee gait, marionette-like — but still alive.
    — Laura Bleiberg, latimes.com, 15 Feb. 2018
  • The marionette’s right leg is exposed because of a tear in the uniform.
    — New York Times, 13 July 2022
  • In the clip, the band performs the song in a puppet theater with marionettes dancing around them.
    — Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 25 Jan. 2024
  • Right away, some wondered whether Red would be the puppeteer and Russ would be the marionette.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 21 May 2021
  • This one danced like a marionette as he was shot down in a Chicago intersection.
    — Elizabeth Alexander, The New Yorker, 15 June 2020
  • Biden is an aging marionette dancing for the progressive wing of his party.
    — Chris Roemer, Baltimore Sun, 15 June 2024
  • Fungus starts to direct the ant's behavior, telling it where to go, what to do, like a puppeteer with a marionette.
    — Philip Ellis, Men's Health, 18 Jan. 2023
  • But these Titans aren’t going to be manned behind a curtain like a marionette.
    — Megan Dubois, Forbes.com, 5 Aug. 2025
  • Or, kids can use the rolls to make marionette puppets with instruction from volunteers.
    — Allison Bagley, Houston Chronicle, 4 Apr. 2018
  • In Burnett’s younger years, her body was as gangly and bendable as a marionette.
    — Rachel Syme, New Yorker, 29 Sep. 2025
  • The answer may lay with a contraption that looks like an oversized record player with a human marionette on top.
    — The Salt Lake Tribune, 30 Jan. 2022
  • There are marionettes, masks, shadow puppets and table top puppets.
    — Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Now Hughes is looking more closely at how the fungus pulls the strings on its insect marionette.
    — Carl Zimmer, Discover Magazine, 9 May 2011
  • In one scene, animal marionettes dance on strings; in another, shadow puppets act out a bawdy folk tale.
    — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 3 Apr. 2025
  • Clicking and clacking, a tiny wooden marionette lifts an apple to his mouth ad infinitum.
    — Jessica Kozuka, Travel + Leisure, 10 June 2026
  • When Françis-Claude was born in 1948, his parents put marionettes in his crib.
    — Liz Alderman, New York Times, 11 Nov. 2019
  • First, there's sagging or loose skin on the face and body, which includes sagging of the jowls, sagging of the central face, and marionette lines.
    — Deanna Pai, Allure, 12 June 2024
  • Three of the figures were made of fine clay and had adjustable heads with holes in them that may have been controlled using a string, much like a marionette puppet.
    — Mack Degeurin, Popular Science, 6 Mar. 2025
  • Hanging from the cables used to lower it from the lander to the ground, the rover resembled a high-tech marionette dangling on strings.
    — Robert Lee Hotz, WSJ, 19 Feb. 2021
  • Slip into a green chair pondside, go jogging, play tennis or basketball, sail a toy sailboat, or take in a chess game or marionette show.
    — Rick Steves' Europe, The Seattle Times, 4 July 2017
  • In the clip, which features a white-noise soundtrack, a model’s legs ankle-breakingly stretch to the side and pull upward like a marionette.
    — Liana Satenstein, Vogue, 15 Nov. 2018
  • In telling after telling, Dorothy is presented as the docile marionette of whatever man’s pulling her strings at the moment.
    — Lili Anolik, Vanity Fair, 12 Jan. 2026
  • At the back of the group, Graham Feeny stands with arms outstretched and the other five dancers react like marionettes.
    — Jeffrey Gantz, BostonGlobe.com, 19 Mar. 2023
  • The sculpture is held up by a crane, and some people see it as a marionette, eliciting both laughs, criticisms, and discussions.
    — Alex Perry, The Enquirer, 12 Oct. 2024
  • On the tops of Carias’ hands are tattooed marionette controls; on his right hand Baker’s name is inscribed as a tribute.
    — Joelle Estelle Mendoza, Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 2023
  • Can the bacteria in our bodies control our behavior in the same way a puppetmaster pulls the strings of a marionette?
    — Carl Zimmer, Discover Magazine, 4 Mar. 2010
  • By the end of the trailer, the character has applied full marionette corpsepaint to his face and donned a black trench coat, marching gun in hand, towards his foes.
    — Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 14 Mar. 2024

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