How to Use ostinato in a Sentence

ostinato

noun
  • The song describes a man obsessing about the girl who lives in the apartment above him over a clanging ostinato piano note.
    — Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 28 Apr. 2021
  • The score drips with a sinister ostinato as the rats scurry into every corner of her castle.
    — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 6 July 2026
  • The sound of buildings going up is the city’s ostinato—its thrumming, hammering heartbeat.
    — Burkhard Bilger, The New Yorker, 23 Nov. 2020
  • On the final one, a two-note ostinato creates a chugging momentum, quickly joined by a racing, jittery theme.
    — Joshua Barone, New York Times, 10 Sep. 2019
  • Today — some three decades onward — the same basso ostinato is becoming strongly audible for the third time.
    — Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 27 Apr. 2017
  • There are stretches in the first movement in which frenetic marimba volleys skirt atop jittery string ostinatos that break into cresting harmonic waves.
    — Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 12 June 2016
  • Its slow movement, in C minor, is built on a mesmerizing cello ostinato, rising by scalar steps from C to F and then back down.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2022
  • Although there are sonic glimpses of Britell’s signature ostinato here, they’re too often drowned out by choirs that are meant to be heavenly but just sound pretentious and grandiose.
    — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 1 May 2023
  • The first movement is powered by ostinato figures, and the HSO brass played the opening in dark colors with fierce, menacing sound.
    — Jeffrey Johnson, courant.com, 10 Mar. 2018
  • And the film’s storytelling is as free as jazz — or, in fact, a then-unknown band named Earth, Wind & Fire, who lay down a funk ostinato topped by a snaky, blaring sax.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 23 Sep. 2021
  • With nary a pause, Helfer plunged into an up-tempo boogie, hammering staccato notes in the stratosphere of the keyboard while his bass-note ostinatos kept rolling along, like a train rattling down the tracks.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 14 Feb. 2018
  • In the impressive opening Kyrie, a catchy ostinato in the piano and a slow, wistful interlude for strings pave the way toward an impassioned choral entreaty that crests and recedes like ocean waves.
    — Barbara Jepson, WSJ, 24 Sep. 2020
  • Dolnick has not just a journalist’s fondness for narrative color but also an affection for England that plays, like a basso ostinato, beneath his text.
    — The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2021
  • Though Oh opened this reflection on the art of mime Marcel Marceau with a simple ostinato on stand-up bass, the plot thickened as each instrument joined the music-making.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 18 June 2017
  • On the Pittsburgh recording of the Seventh, the ostinato rhythm in the second movement takes on a distinctive vocal contour, with changing inflections from one note to the next.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 3 Feb. 2020
  • Male anxiety and aggression form a jittery ostinato to the proceedings, as Matthias tries to train Rudi in masculinist skills like fishing, fending and fighting.
    — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 9 May 2023
  • For stretches, this amalgamation of styles held together uneasily, but toward the end, a blend of ostinato propulsion and astringent harmony created a memorable vibe.
    — Seth Colter Walls, New York Times, 10 Dec. 2017
  • Relentless ostinato figures underscored Nosferatu’s voyage by boat.
    — Alex Ross, New Yorker, 22 Dec. 2025
  • Perlman and De Silva struck a similar balance in their interpretation, reveling in the ostinatos and spare, almost Hindemithian harmonies without overstating them or concealing the work’s classical bones.
    — Paul Hodgins, Orange County Register, 23 Jan. 2017
  • The song’s iconic four-note ostinato dates back to pre-Christian folklore, and was arranged into its classical musical form by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovich in 1916.
    — Micah Hendler, Forbes, 31 Jan. 2022
  • Before the fretting reaches a head, one of Barbieri’s backing oscillators creeps forward into a nimble major-key ostinato that sounds like it was lifted from a Lorenzo Senni daydream, transforming a slight shift in timbre and time signature into a crescendo of new hope.
    — Hattie Lindert, Pitchfork, 2 Mar. 2026

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