Adjective a writer famous for her mordant humor a mordant review of the movie that compared it to having one's teeth pulled for two hours

Recent Examples on the Web: Adjective

The film’s mordant joke lives on in the fact of Commander in Chief’s accidental presidency. Megan Garber, The Atlantic, "The World That Kamala Harris Will Navigate," 12 Aug. 2020

But the depiction of a social order in which almost every participant is a gangster of some sort, and the mordant humor the movie finds in this, is Russian through and through. Glenn Kenny, New York Times, "‘Why Don’t You Just Die!’ Review: Attempted Murder, but Make It Comedy," 20 Apr. 2020

On the surface, his films are mordant fables about authoritarianism. Jeremy Lybarger, The New York Review of Books, "The Mordant Fables of Juraj Herz," 20 Apr. 2020

The Grammy winner was known for his keen observations and mordant humor. Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times, "The 10 best John Prine songs," 7 Apr. 2020

The dark and mordant joke is, of course, that Trump finds those hateful traits admirable. Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, "Behind the Bewildering Recent Incidents of Anti-Semitism," 16 Dec. 2019

Emily Dickinson, considered one of the preeminent American poets, reinvented the genre with her mordant wit, macabre spirit and creative grammar. Robyn Bahr, Billboard, "'Dickinson': Apple TV+ Series Review," 28 Oct. 2019

First, Mendelsohn, a longtime associate of Michôd’s, turns the usually mordant Henry IV into a vain paranoiac entirely unworthy of the crown. David Sims, The Atlantic, "The King Makes a Dreary Muddle of an Epic Drama," 11 Oct. 2019

Each dictator’s life is offered with neat, mordant compression. Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, "The Field Guide to Tyranny," 16 Dec. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'mordant.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.