How to Use slapstick in a Sentence

slapstick

noun
  • And the slapstick with the painting, that was a big one.
    — Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker, 21 June 2026
  • But their attempts at slapstick and self-aware jokes land with a dull thud.
    — Courtney Howard, Variety, 11 Nov. 2021
  • There is slapstick farce and clowning but that’s not the only thing the play holds.
    — Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 2 Mar. 2025
  • On the venue’s small stage, two men performed a vaudeville-style slapstick show.
    — Katie Thornton, Harpers Magazine, 26 May 2026
  • So why not bring in somebody so adept with slapstick and goofy visual humor?
    — Todd Vanderwerff, Vox, 5 July 2018
  • There is plenty of loud scoring and slapstick in the many chase sequences.
    — Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec. 2023
  • That said, there is quite a bit lurking just under the slapstick surface.
    — Christian Lewis, Variety, 12 July 2024
  • Green Bay’s screen game was the worst kind of slapstick comedy.
    — Gary Gramling, SI.com, 21 Oct. 2017
  • There are plenty of dad jokes and moments of slapstick humor.
    — Bryan West, USA TODAY, 6 Feb. 2024
  • The result is the stuff of silly slapstick rather than a full-Cage head trip.
    — Washington Post, 20 Apr. 2022
  • The slapstick is lame, the jokes are lazy, and the attempts at drama are hollow.
    — Matthew Gilbert, BostonGlobe.com, 21 June 2018
  • He was submerged in pie-in-the-face slapstick from his earliest years.
    — Adam Bernstein, Alaska Dispatch News, 20 Aug. 2017
  • The first murder scene almost goes into a slapstick area where so many things go wrong for him.
    — Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Aug. 2024
  • If anything, the jokes that are supposed to please adults are even weaker than the slapstick.
    — Kyle Smith, WSJ, 28 July 2022
  • And the movie, despite being filled with broad slapstick, ends on a melancholy note.
    — Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 Jan. 2018
  • Some of the set pieces have a slapstick quality to them that’s delightful.
    — Odie Henderson, BostonGlobe.com, 22 Mar. 2023
  • Or is this the brief comedic creation of a virtual slapstick genius?
    — Emma Specter, Vogue, 1 Oct. 2019
  • Luigi’s Mansion 3 is pure slapstick, and there just aren’t enough games like that.
    — Andrew Webster, The Verge, 12 June 2019
  • Morris turns Beckett’s dark slapstick into a kind of folk dance.
    — New York Times, 26 Sep. 2021
  • But the Pauls’ upbeat, slapstick content hid a darkness at home.
    — Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 Oct. 2024
  • What’s also attractive to me about it is that the comedy is not farce or slapstick.
    — David L. Coddon, San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 Mar. 2023
  • Everyone finds just the right balance of slapstick and drama.
    — Laura Demarco, cleveland, 1 Feb. 2020
  • The slapstick hit is an adaptation of a Mahua Funage stage play of the same name.
    — Patrick Brzeski, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Oct. 2017
  • In the 1940s, humor was mostly about corny jokes with punch lines, and loads of slapstick.
    — Scott Adams, WSJ, 22 Oct. 2017
  • More slapstick gags are assigned to an Aquaman knock-off called The Deep.
    — M.s., The Economist, 27 Aug. 2019
  • The dizzying pacing, the litany of hapless jokes, the all-out slapstick and the familiar shtick.
    — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 1 Aug. 2024
  • And a lot of the techniques that once seemed fresh — the fragments, the slapstick, the madcap sound design — now feel like clichés.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 2 Feb. 2018
  • Raimi directs the first episode, Campbell stars throughout, and this is slapstick gore at its finest.
    — Simon Hill, WIRED, 31 Oct. 2024
  • Adults, on the other hand, will spend much of their time scrolling on their phones since the humor is very much of the juvenile slapstick sort.
    — Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter, 31 July 2024
  • The film — part chilling revenge thriller and part absurd slapstick — is riveting.
    — Baz Bamigboye, Deadline, 24 Oct. 2025

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