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.

Twelve years ago, Theo felt more like an abstract idea; a man I romanticized in all of his sensitive, self-tortured, manic-pixie-dream-guy ways.

From Slate • Apr. 11, 2025

Aloy, instead of the self-tortured clone of Elizabet Sobeck, becomes a traveling vagabond — learning the songs of the pastoral Utaru people or the creation myths of the warlike Tenakth.

From The Verge • Feb. 14, 2022

The characters in this franchise are perhaps the most self-tortured, or perhaps just more convincing at it.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 6, 2021

He wrote to a friend: “It’s far & away the best thing I’ve done, simpler, more honest, and, for the first time, out of myself — that is, not self-tortured or -absorbed or -eviscerated.”

From New York Times • Mar. 13, 2018

No "sabre dance" this, but a confession from the dark depths of a self-tortured soul.

From Chopin : the Man and His Music by Huneker, James