Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In The Times, critic David Kipen hailed Pynchon’s classic style as “Olympian, polymathic, erudite, antically funny, often beautiful, at times gross, at others incredibly romantic, never afraid to challenge or even confound.”

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 8, 2025

The first is Olympian, polymathic, erudite, antically funny, often beautiful, at times gross, at others incredibly romantic, never afraid to challenge or even confound, and unmistakably worked at.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 30, 2025

“He had a polymathic mind, but a playful mind,” Alexander Capron, a bioethicist who was one of the center’s founding fellows, said in a phone interview.

From New York Times • Jan. 7, 2023

The polymathic Foss was a skilled and wide-ranging conductor, but he thought of himself primarily as a composer.

From New York Times • Oct. 2, 2022

Yes, that Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, writer and polymathic political thinker, who escaped enslavement and became one of the most influential — and photographed — Americans of the 19th century.

From Washington Post • Jul. 23, 2022