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.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, who characterized Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose movement as one of “strenuous vagueness,” survived Antietam but might have expired straining to decipher Tuesday’s cascade of falsehoods, rudeness and syntactical tangles.

From Washington Post • Sep. 30, 2020

First, seemingly thrown by syntactical complexity, it suggests that I should replace “there in a” with “there is a,” a change that would be ungrammatical, but that still leaves me questioning my own stylistic choices.

From Slate • Feb. 7, 2018

By reading the material aloud, Horgan and her writing partners are trying to make the lines sound as much like spoken English as possible; “Catastrophe” scripts are littered with syntactical detritus like “you know.”

From The New Yorker • Apr. 25, 2016

Traditional classics courses are not making the most of those ancient authors on their curriculum who enhance civic as opposed to syntactical competence.

From The Guardian • Jun. 20, 2015

The plates correspond to examples in syntax, not to be repeated parrot-like, but to be studied as embodiments of syntactical principles. 

From The Essays of "George Eliot" Complete by Sheppard, Nathan