How to Use mordant in a Sentence
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Solomon turned to him and, per usual, turned a little mordant.
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August Brown,
latimes.com,
7 Mar. 2018
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There’s a whiff of mordant, socially aware wit to this setup.
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Ty Burr,
BostonGlobe.com,
10 July 2019
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The dark and mordant joke is, of course, that Trump finds those hateful traits admirable.
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Adam Gopnik,
The New Yorker,
16 Dec. 2019
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The bizarre opening is one of a small handful of touches of mordant humor.
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David Rooney,
The Hollywood Reporter,
17 Feb. 2023
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Entwined with that reserve is a fierce charisma and a mordant sense of humor.
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Alexis Soloski,
New York Times,
15 Feb. 2024
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Once the witnesses and their agendas become part of the mix, mordant ironies grow thick and fast.
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Tony Adler,
Chicago Reader,
27 Feb. 2018
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Soon, there’s a running list of suspects on the whiteboard in the staff room, along with mordant commentary.
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Sarah Lyall,
New York Times,
21 Oct. 2022
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To complex issues, Pescador brings deep insight and a mordant visual wit.
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Los Angeles Times,
8 May 2021
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The second episode ends with a mordant scene illustrating the dilemma.
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Farhad Manjoo,
New York Times,
27 Oct. 2019
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There is a wryness to many of these poems, and some contrive a mordant introspection.
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Frank Wilson,
Philly.com,
19 Feb. 2018
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In his latest cover, John Cuneo puts a mordant spin on the problem.
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Françoise Mouly,
The New Yorker,
1 Mar. 2021
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There is sadness here, sure, but there is also a deep appreciation for life and a mordant sense of humor.
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Marya E. Gates,
Vulture,
12 Oct. 2022
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Her mordant wit and insight into the darkest chambers of the human heart shaped me, first as a reader and then as a writer.
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Hillel Italie,
ajc,
11 Aug. 2022
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It’s shot through with even more mordant humor than Cronenberg’s last film, Maps to the Stars.
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David Sims,
The Atlantic,
2 June 2022
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Nemens’s absurd, mordant outlook keeps the story from resembling a soap opera, as does her pitch-black sense of humor.
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New York Times,
3 Feb. 2026
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Like much of the Coens’ work, these are tragedies tinged with mordant humor and punctuated by the bleakest twists of fate.
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Sezin Devi Keohler,
Entertainment Weekly,
7 Mar. 2026
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As fine as some of those performances have been, no one has accurately captured her throaty, sotto voce verbal style or mordant wit.
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Washington Post,
28 Sep. 2020
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The Grammy winner was known for his keen observations and mordant humor.
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Robert Hilburn,
Los Angeles Times,
7 Apr. 2020
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The goofy charm that Bridges brings to the prior films is greatly lacking here, replaced with mordant self-seriousness.
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David Sims,
The Atlantic,
10 Oct. 2025
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Her mordant stories grapple with technology and society in a way that brings to mind the cyberpunk greats.
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Washington Post,
6 Apr. 2021
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If this plotline sounds a bit self-serious, Yuknavitch smartly cuts it with mordant humor.
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The Editors,
The Atlantic,
4 Aug. 2017
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Like the artist’s larger body of work, the piece tackles difficult ideas with mordant humor and the detritus of everyday life.
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Los Angeles Times,
30 Sep. 2019
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In the largest show of his career, Boris Mikhailov casts a mordant eye over 60 years of Ukraine’s history.
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Jason Farago,
New York Times,
28 Oct. 2022
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Kafka, if translated well, as Michael Hofmann does, is so funny, and suits my mordant humor.
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New York Times,
7 Aug. 2022
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The movie is less palatable, though, as some sentimental notes fit poorly with Martin’s often mordant humor.
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Walter Addiego,
star-telegram.com,
30 May 2017
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The answer can be found in the book’s evocative quotes, alternately mordant and macabre, many of which come from the photographer’s grandmother.
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Devorah Lev-Tov Zoey Poll Caitie Kelly Devorah Lev-Tov Elinor Hitt Jinnie Lee,
New York Times,
5 Oct. 2023
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Part of DeLillo’s mordant jest of a book, and the fun of the wordplay, is that the adults are children, too — especially the niche academics.
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Michael Phillips,
Chicago Tribune,
2 Sep. 2022
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His conversation is astringent; his mordant wit softens into easy laughter.
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Lizz Schumer,
PEOPLE,
21 Oct. 2025
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Produced, like the paintings, in a crisp Pop style and annotated with mordant commentary, the guides amount to a take-away show on their own and are well worth spending time with.
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Roberta Smith, Holland Cotter, Will Heinrich and Martha Schwendener,
New York Times,
5 Jan. 2017
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Why is Bertolt Brecht, whose poems are perhaps the most poignant and mordant meditations on displacement, ignored?
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Ariel Dorfman,
The New York Review of Books,
17 Nov. 2020
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Many dyes rely on mordants—metallic salts used to fix color to fabric—that can range from benign to environmentally harmful.
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Alexandra Harrell,
Sourcing Journal,
13 Oct. 2025
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The writing is brilliant, bringing to life a narrator with a penetrating gaze and a mordant, misanthropic voice.
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Scott W. Stern,
The New Republic,
11 Feb. 2021
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Petite, quietly savage, with a sense of humor that can skew either goofy or mordant, Milioti, 35, is not the girl next door.
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New York Times,
26 Mar. 2021
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Loudon, 70-something patriarch, inhabits the canopy; from folkie to singing surgeon to some measure of each, adjoining the mordant to the serious.
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Nathan Rizzo | For The Oregonian/oregonlive,
oregonlive,
1 Nov. 2021
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But Stewart’s take on Diana gives this film a wicked sense of humor too, emphasizing how her mordant sarcasm clashed just as uncomfortably with the royal family as her independent streak did.
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David Sims,
The Atlantic,
25 Sep. 2021
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Narrator George Blagden beautifully captures the tenor of Nana’s mordant wit, his lofty view of himself, and his frequent spates of umbrage at human presumption and sheer stupidity.
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Washington Post,
14 Dec. 2020
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mordant.' 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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