How to Use monkish in a Sentence

monkish

adjective
  • And also there is something a little bit, the word that comes to mind is almost monkish.
    — Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 9 Jan. 2026
  • Bender had a monkish devotion to his work, and to Trump, who became his sole client.
    — Peter Elkind, ProPublica, 8 May 2020
  • The women shimmered in sequins and the men wore monkish mullets — short in the front, long in the back, shaved around the ears.
    — New York Times, 16 Oct. 2021
  • So Jimmy wants to prevent James from going down the monkish path that will lead to his breakthroughs.
    — John Defore, The Hollywood Reporter, 30 Apr. 2020
  • When a tone finally booms out, a monkish man is looking on in wonder—the icon painter Andrei Rublev.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 8 Feb. 2021
  • Neither of its two principal artist figures, the antic bell-founder and the monkish painter, can elude the cold eyes of earthly authority.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 8 Feb. 2021
  • Every day from roughly 10 until 1, Pullman sits at his desk in a monkish study at the top of the house and produces three pages, longhand.
    — Sophie Elmhirst, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2017
  • Except for stints spent travelling, his life was monkish, mostly spent at his Olympia typewriter or, as his projects required, in libraries and archives.
    — Max Norman, The New Yorker, 12 Dec. 2022
  • And yet there is no contemporary athlete who seems to relish an almost monkish attitude to self-denial and suffering as Nadal.
    — John Blake, CNN, 27 May 2022
  • In an age of algorithmic din, Feldman’s appeal lies in his unhurried, monkish devotion to the elementals of sound.
    — Alex Ross, New Yorker, 26 Jan. 2026
  • That same summer a monkish figure appeared in the two versions of Picasso’s The Three Musicians.
    — Jed Perl, The New York Review of Books, 25 Feb. 2021
  • The result was clothing whose discreet, sometimes almost monkish, style was as pronouncedly unmistakable as its unique fabrication.
    — Luke Leitch, Vogue, 9 Aug. 2022
  • Pärt, who has apparently retired from creative work, offers an output that is far more complex and contradictory than his monkish public image suggests.
    — Alex Ross, New Yorker, 3 Nov. 2025
  • With un-monkish mischief, Dhammaloka mailed a hoax obituary of himself to a newspaper in Calcutta, which was published.
    — Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, 27 Dec. 2020
  • Often made by anonymous rappers and producers with a monkish dedication to their craft, this isn’t rap for the live show but for the headphones, music where every muttered word and barely-there snare matters.
    — Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 26 June 2026
  • Because of his avoidance of publicity and his reportedly monkish immersion in the music, Petrenko has acquired a cultish mystique.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 9 Sep. 2019
  • Maintaining a decade-long vow of silence takes monkish dedication and a certain stamina, and Justice Thomas has no modern competition.
    — Adam Liptak, New York Times, 1 Feb. 2016
  • The building is stealthily spacious with 40 bedrooms, and there’s a serious Sisley spa, designed with monkish minimalism, plus four superb restaurants.
    — Matt Ortile, Condé Nast Traveler, 3 June 2026
  • The festival would know that better than most, juxtaposing classical music—and its expectation of monkish silence—with the heart of Chicago’s downtown, and the human mix therein.
    — Hannah Edgar, Chicago Tribune, 16 Aug. 2025
  • The Luhring Augustine exhibition presents an artist whose name has become almost synonymous with his single-minded dedication to the act of painting—and with, as an aspect of this, his stringent, monkish work habits.
    — Sanford Schwartz, The New York Review of Books, 11 Mar. 2021
  • The Luhring Augustine exhibition presents an artist whose name has become almost synonymous with his single-minded dedication to the act of painting—and with, as an aspect of this, his stringent, monkish work habits.
    — Sanford Schwartz, The New York Review of Books, 23 Feb. 2021
  • Designed with the neighboring 12th-century Abbaye de Sénaque in mind, the monkish minimalism—polished dark wood, long, bone-white corridors—add to the unique quality of this attractive space.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 4 June 2026
  • The 1991 beat-’em up is notorious for its difficulty, requiring superhuman reflexes and monkish levels of patience.
    — Gieson Cacho, Star Tribune, 26 Aug. 2020
  • Bankman-Fried had become a legend by pushing an image of monkish aloofness, vowing to forsake the allures of his extraordinary wealth — sleeping on beanbag chairs, driving a Toyota Corolla — and to give away his fortune for the greater good.
    — Nitasha Tiku, Washington Post, 16 Nov. 2022
  • Bankman-Fried had become a legend by pushing an image of monkish aloofness, vowing to forsake the allures of his extraordinary wealth - sleeping on beanbag chairs, driving a Toyota Corolla - and to give away his fortune for the greater good.
    — Tim Craig, Drew Harwell, Nitasha Tiku, Anchorage Daily News, 26 Nov. 2022

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