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.

After a hike above Pasadena’s Eaton Canyon in 1877, John Muir described the San Gabriel Mountains as the place where “Mother Nature is most ruggedly, thornily, savage.”

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 26, 2023

It’s a debate that has raised thornily familiar questions about depiction vs. endorsement, the uses and limitations of cinematic beauty and the movie medium’s natural inclination toward narratives of individual resilience over collective struggle.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 25, 2021

It has been suggested, in the age of Killing Eve and Sharp Objects, that television is more hospitable than film to the thornily complex female anti-heroine, and if so, Gyllenhaal has been taking advantage.

From The Guardian • Oct. 12, 2018

By the start of “Book Three” he has morphed into the overweight, hence overlooked, thornily rebellious Kim.

From New York Times • Jan. 21, 2017

"I wish you would call me Penny so I'd feel more like a person than a witness," Penny retorted thornily.

From Murder at Bridge by Austin, Anne