How to Use phlegmatic in a Sentence

phlegmatic

adjective
  • The windows stay black and phlegmatic as the air outside begins to heave with rain.
    — Colin Channer, The New Yorker, 9 Nov. 2020
  • Bumgarner put his hands on his knees and cursed, a rare show of frustration for this phlegmatic and competitive man.
    — Michael Powell, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2016
  • Both the phlegmatic Pliny the Younger and the priapic and ill-fated Diocles also have their say.
    — Claire Messud, Harper's Magazine, 17 Aug. 2021
  • Whether his phlegmatic sales pitch, coming in the final week before Super Tuesday, will be enough to lift him up remains to be seen.
    — New York Times, 28 Feb. 2020
  • Johnson was, as usual, unkempt and amused, a tornado of bonhomie in a country where politicians tend to be phlegmatic and self-serious, if not dour and awkward.
    — Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 7 June 2021
  • Shinichi Atobe’s arresting house and techno beams with inimitable candor, built from bright, phlegmatic loops that run on an eccentric internal logic.
    — Maxie Younger, Pitchfork, 27 Mar. 2026
  • Thomas — as Joan was originally known — was candid but excitable and arrogant; Peter, devious but phlegmatic and cordial.
    — New York Times, 1 July 2021
  • When a cardiologist prescribes swimming five days a week, the phlegmatic Birbiglia argues that such a regimen would overwhelm even Michael Phelps.
    — Los Angeles Times, 8 Aug. 2022
  • Kunzweiler, a phlegmatic, gray-haired career prosecutor a generation older, prized the finality of a jury verdict — and the punishment that went with it.
    — Pamela Colloff, ProPublica, 24 Mar. 2026
  • Instead his Paterno is a phlegmatic Lear, an old man attempting to hide from an unsavory reality in what had always been his retreat and obsession — football.
    — Frank Fitzpatrick, Philly.com, 6 Apr. 2018
  • The dancers were unassisted by a somewhat phlegmatic rendition of Paul Hindemith's score by the Chicago Philharmonic.
    — Irene Hsiao, Chicago Reader, 8 Feb. 2018
  • One of Banky’s first public murals to receive widespread attention portrayed a phlegmatic Teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail at riot police.
    — oregonlive, 4 Apr. 2022
  • Such audacities were otherwise quashed in Holbein’s supervening duties to phlegmatic patrons.
    — Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 21 Feb. 2022
  • Yet, even so phlegmatic a personality as DiMaggio eventually yielded to temptation.
    — Steven Goldman, Slate Magazine, 7 Sep. 2017
  • Orwell’s increasingly phlegmatic and introverted personality, combined with a fierce idealism and a devotion to accuracy in writing, brought him as a writer to fight to protect a private place in that modern world.
    — Mary Ann Gwinn, latimes.com, 19 May 2017
  • Orwell’s increasingly phlegmatic and introverted personality, combined with a fierce idealism and a devotion to accuracy in writing, brought him as a writer to fight to protect a private place in that modern world.
    — Mary Ann Gwinn, chicagotribune.com, 31 May 2017
  • In the current moment, Representative Maxine Waters, who is decidedly more phlegmatic than Jordan, has been slotted into this role.
    — Brittney Cooper, Cosmopolitan, 7 Aug. 2017
  • By contrast, big businessmen, in the book, exhibit an odd combination of idealism, a crippling inability to be anything but phlegmatic in public, and emotional vulnerability.
    — Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker, 31 May 2021
  • While Putin saw these events as cataclysmic, Merkel already seemed to have the strangely phlegmatic attitude toward grand ideas of history that would characterize her sixteen-year reign as chancellor of the united Germany.
    — Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 18 Oct. 2021
  • Neither hyperactive grandstanding in Paris nor phlegmatic passivity from Berlin has prevented the emergence of a common Western position.
    — Walter Russell Mead, WSJ, 21 Feb. 2022
  • The Diamondbacks’ approach heading into the 2021 season was decidedly phlegmatic.
    — Tony Blengino, Forbes, 12 Nov. 2021
  • The interview – as well as Stahl's globetrotting investigation to find Marcel's family – are shown at length in the film, and will surely delight anyone who's familiar with her phlegmatic delivery and meticulous reporting.
    — Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY, 27 June 2022
  • Massachusetts resident Stephen Chukumba, who featured in the original short and has stepped up to producing for this feature, faces less drastic life choices, especially since his transgender son Hobbes, a delightfully phlegmatic, unflappable kid, is now old enough to go off to university.
    — Leslie Felperin, HollywoodReporter, 20 Mar. 2026
  • Massimiliano Allegri, given the circumstances, was surprisingly phlegmatic.
    — New York Times, 27 Aug. 2021
  • The thickset Armand Assante was a phlegmatic Odysseus, but Greta Scacchi, as Penelope—who has so little to say in the poem—became the physical embodiment of anger, and Isabella Rossellini was a teasing Athena.
    — David Denby, New Yorker, 21 June 2026

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