How to Use sepia in a Sentence

sepia

noun
  • The sky turned sepia, the sun erased.
    — Hayleigh Evans, AZCentral.com, 28 Aug. 2025
  • Washes include sepia blue, ochre blue, graphite, brown black and more.
    — Angela Velasquez, Sourcing Journal, 14 Oct. 2025
  • For pale skin, this can mean sepia browns, while medium and olive skin tones can go for milk chocolate shades.
    — Georgia Day, Vogue, 11 Oct. 2023
  • Typical gravesite photos, sepia and oval, in frames.
    — Mariana Enriquez october 2, Literary Hub, 2 Oct. 2025
  • For a less sepia-toned analogy, look to Steve Jobs.
    — Liz Hoffman, semafor.com, 21 Aug. 2025
  • The sepia-toned pic pays total homage to the old cover, but with a more modern update.
    — Carolyn Twersky, Seventeen, 12 Feb. 2021
  • The resulting haze puts a natural sepia filter on the city at dusk.
    — WIRED, 13 Nov. 2023
  • Euphoria was doing for purple what Dune would do with sepia.
    — Zoë Haylock, Vulture, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Some parts of the film are displayed in a light shade (similar to sepia, just multi-light colored).
    — Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 30 June 2026
  • Yet the sources of mistrust of Covid-19 vaccine trials aren’t just sepia-toned.
    — Eric Boodman, STAT, 25 Sep. 2020
  • Pink wore a long white halter neck dress with sepia tapestry print and burnt orange floral detail.
    — Meg Walters, InStyle, 4 Apr. 2026
  • And then there is … light — the light, the overhead halo of blue, sometimes blanched into whiteness, sometimes edged with smog-sepia.
    — Los Angeles Times, 18 Jan. 2022
  • The tones are sepia, the music orchestral, the title cards whimsical, and the faces deadpan.
    — Andrea Marks, Rolling Stone, 21 Apr. 2023
  • The restaurants are ginned-up to look and feel like a country store—old tin signs and license plates, sepia-toned pictures, rocking chairs, and all the rest.
    — Greg Petro, Forbes.com, 8 Sep. 2025
  • Set in sepia tones, the image will underlay a smaller and older stamp of a bison in a nod to philatelists.
    — Shi En Kim, AZCentral.com, 20 Mar. 2026
  • Because the tint comes from a natural source, shades of sepia vary based on the local diets of the cuttlefish and where the pigment was made.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Discover Magazine, 30 Nov. 2023
  • The color palette shifts among black and white, sepia-toned, and some gray-green patina to really nail the foreboding aura.
    — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 29 June 2026
  • Christophe Ginisty draws you in with a beautiful sepia-toned image of a boy looking into a shop window at his book.
    — William Arruda, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • So just like in Impressionist paintings and old sepia photos, Parisians can once again cool off in their river.
    — Eleanor Beardsley, NPR, 13 Aug. 2025
  • The costume designer didn’t want everything to be brown and sepia as seen in old fashioned period dramas.
    — Hikmat Mohammed, Footwear News, 26 Sep. 2025
  • Brows were dark, thin, and slightly feathered a la Marilyn, and lips were lined with a sepia brown and finished with a slick of rose-toned lipstick.
    — Anna Cafolla, Vogue, 2 Nov. 2025
  • That run now feels oddly sepia-toned, a pre-brat cultural moment before pop’s current maximalist turn.
    — Ana Gutierrez, Austin American Statesman, 22 Jan. 2026
  • The struggle for literacy, for safety, for economic footholds — these are not sepia-toned memories.
    — Jack Hill, Baltimore Sun, 26 Feb. 2026
  • Harris introduces us to the girls in a sepia flashback, their small bodies clad in matching dresses, one head resting on the other’s shoulder.
    — Katie Walsh, Boston Herald, 15 May 2026
  • Harry’s residency years feel strangely sepia-toned now, pre-Charli’s brat cultural takeover.
    — Ana Gutierrez, Austin American Statesman, 5 Dec. 2025
  • And the first 10 minutes of George Roy Hill’s movie is in sepia tone before transitioning to full color.
    — G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 16 Sep. 2025
  • In an Ashes of TikTok cricket, Boland has stuck to his sepia-toned methods and England haven’t worked out how to better him.
    — Tim Spiers, New York Times, 7 Jan. 2026
  • And yet, in today’s topical songs by legacy rock artists, such elements don’t heighten the immediacy of the day’s horrors but, rather, run them through a sepia-toned filter.
    — Mitch Therieau, New Yorker, 7 Feb. 2026
  • Jessica Winward’s lighting helps define the different periods — with sepia tones creeping into the past and brighter colors for modern day.
    — Michelle F. Solomon, Miami Herald, 26 Mar. 2026
  • Equally moody is Caillier’s textural take on Foliage, weaving branches of sepia, sage green, and sky-blue hues into a cocooning oak leaf motif.
    — Sydney Gore, Architectural Digest, 29 Sep. 2025

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