sight gag

Definition of sight gag

: a comic bit or episode whose effect is produced by pantomime or camera shot rather than by words

Examples of sight gag in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web All are male, except for a single female character brought on for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sight gag. — Christopher Arnott, courant.com, "Playhouse on Park’s ‘All is Calm’ a warm, moving portrayal of 1914 Christmas Truce," 22 Dec. 2020 The restaurant gig — an extended sight gag, more or less — isn’t very convincing, and not only because Oh is awfully slow at folding mandu. — Mike Hale, New York Times, "Review: A ‘Killing Eve’ That No One Was Asking For," 10 Apr. 2020 Ingenious sight gags abound, from a woman pruning a hedge with shaving cream and a razor to a board game called Security Questions. — Judy Berman, Time, "Three Busy Debras," 25 Mar. 2020 Big sight gags are fine, but if there's the slightest doubt that something pushes too far in an effort to get noticed, err on the side of caution. — Brian Lowry, CNN, "Super Bowl commercials: The dos and don'ts of successful ads," 2 Feb. 2020 The certain sight gag of piloting a virtual goose around gives way to the nuisance of piloting a goose around. — Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, "Video Games Are Better Without Game-Play," 22 Oct. 2019 For all its fart jokes and sight gags, The Good Place belongs to a venerable philosophical and theological tradition. — Matthew Robert Anderson, Quartzy, "“The Good Place” taps into our hunger for second chances and redemption," 27 Nov. 2019 The jokes and sight gags come hard and fast, and if a few fail to land, no matter—there are plenty of other laughs to be had. — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, "Review: Zombieland: Double Tap delivers wise-cracking, brain-splattering fun," 18 Oct. 2019 At one point, a brief but delectable sight gag has the street urchins deadpanning through a window, wearing sunglasses, while Seymour sings about a solar eclipse. — Celia Wren, Washington Post, "Despite exotic botany, Constellation’s ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ is an old chestnut," 24 Oct. 2019

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

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Last Updated

11 Jan 2021

Cite this Entry

“Sight gag.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sight%20gag. Accessed 25 Jan. 2021.

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