How to Use parlor game in a Sentence

parlor game

noun
  • Old-school parlor games still work.
    — Alex Horne, Vulture, 19 June 2026
  • For the rest of us, the parlor game is on – who signs where, and for how much?
    — Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, 5 Nov. 2019
  • None of it plays like a parlor game or rage-bait, as the genre so often can.
    — Matt Donnelly, Variety, 22 June 2026
  • Who will replace him has been a longtime parlor game among fans (and staff) of the show.
    — Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune, 14 Feb. 2025
  • The parlor game becomes trying to figure out which will emerge at the front of the pack.
    — Joe Reid, Vulture, 17 Oct. 2025
  • Married guys gather at someone’s house to play a parlor game, drink beer and talk.
    — Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2024
  • Talk of it is a parlor game, and sightings of it are a mirage, whether in left-wing form or in rightist form.
    — Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, 6 Nov. 2020
  • Forget street parades and cookouts, bring in the parlor games and heavy roasted meats.
    — oregonlive, 27 June 2023
  • The comparisons can just feel like a highfalutin parlor game.
    — David Marchese, New York Times, 31 May 2021
  • From the news reports, one would be forgiven for concluding that the whole thing is a parlor game.
    — Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 11 June 2021
  • Guests also engaged in a parlor game that involved matching quotes to looks from his past collections.
    — Ari Stark, Footwear News, 3 Sep. 2019
  • The new parlor game of guessing the weekly jobless claims total may not continue.
    — Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, 25 Mar. 2020
  • As the corona clampdown is (please) coming to an end, there’s a new parlor game sweeping the nation.
    — Andy Kessler, WSJ, 26 Apr. 2020
  • Expect this question to become a favorite pundit parlor game.
    — Nate Jones, Vulture, 22 Oct. 2021
  • That the country which bestows Nobel Prizes should play this parlor game is no surprise.
    — Colton Valentine, New Yorker, 24 Jan. 2026
  • And this has fostered a new parlor game, giving the President's wife free advice.
    — Fox News, 1 Apr. 2018
  • Which brings us to, quite frankly, a far more interesting parlor game than Olympic roster debates.
    — Mark Lazerus, New York Times, 2 Jan. 2026
  • His father, the plantation owner, sometimes calls upon his son to display this gift as a kind of parlor game.
    — Joan Gaylord, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Oct. 2019
  • Trying to guess who was behind the ads became something of a parlor game in some Beltway circles.
    — New York Times, 13 Sep. 2019
  • The former, although starting off as a parlor game, has been around since the 15th century.
    — Alegría Adedeji, Harper's BAZAAR, 17 Feb. 2021
  • The group promises a weekend of homemade meals from fresh, local produce and parlor games by candlelight.
    — Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 7 Mar. 2025
  • Surrealists turned a pen-and-paper parlor game into a whole new mode of expression.
    — Angela Watercutter, Wired, 12 Apr. 2021
  • The Dynamite Club was more parlor game than detective work.
    — Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 20 June 2026
  • The Hollywood parlor game of who is going to invest first has already begun.
    — Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times, 2 Oct. 2017
  • What lies beyond the Wall is death itself; what happens down south, by comparison, is parlor games.
    — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 16 June 2024
  • Thinking up other candidates has become a parlor game in the comedy world.
    — Reeves Wiedeman, Vulture, 11 Feb. 2025
  • In the midst of the rage and soul-searching, unearthing the leaker has become a parlor game among the politically savvy.
    — Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2022
  • That parlor game has quietly become consumer software.
    — Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 28 Nov. 2025
  • Pre-modern capitalism had the air of a parlor game between the high and mighty, and was quite often in bad odor among rentier elites themselves.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 16 Aug. 2010
  • In less than three years, OpenAI has gone from a parlor game to a pillar of the global economy.
    — Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune, 7 Oct. 2025

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