mirthless

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of mirthless Writing, too, is mirthless and effortful. Moira Donegan, New Yorker, 26 Mar. 2025 Why is this one mirthless and artless? Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, 29 Jan. 2025 Yet there was a mirthless response from those around him; a realisation there was an element of truth to his chant. Roshane Thomas, The Athletic, 30 Dec. 2024 His mirthless laugh might have suggested Kafkaesque persecution, or Hardyesque inexorability of fate. Tad Friend, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2024 Yet there was a mirthless response from those around him; a realisation there was an element of truth to his chant. Roshane Thomas, The Athletic, 30 Dec. 2024 His mirthless laugh might have suggested Kafkaesque persecution, or Hardyesque inexorability of fate. Tad Friend, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2024 Susan Faludi Laugh-In On the joyful Kamala Harris and the mirthless Donald Trump Nathaniel Rich Silent Spring Why aren’t the candidates talking about climate change? Patricia J. Williams, The New York Review of Books, 18 Oct. 2024 Cheung, who has only one friend at work (Leo Chen), fields mirthless calls from his wife and daughter in Taiwan that are always about money, nothing else. Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 May 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mirthless
Adjective
  • Only Hunter Goodman, a catcher who played for Hartford in 2022 and 23, will represent the woebegone franchise in the All-Star Game.
    Dom Amore, Hartford Courant, 13 July 2025
  • While examples abound, the state’s woebegone bullet train project, its tortuous efforts to implement information technology and the financial and managerial meltdown of its unemployment insurance program are among the most egregious.
    Dan Walters, Mercury News, 26 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • For three days, things were cheerless for Courtney Williams.
    Mike Cook, Twin Cities, 28 May 2025
  • Gomez gestured across the street toward 100 Centre Street—the criminal courthouse, a cheerless Art Deco building the color of cinder blocks.
    Sarah Lustbader, The New Yorker, 10 Mar. 2025
Adjective
  • That's the sad reality facing many dogs in the wider shelter system.
    Jack Beresford, MSNBC Newsweek, 13 July 2025
  • Know that all feelings are OK Some kids might be very sad or might be scared, and some kids might not have thought about this at all.
    Nicole Villalpando, Austin American Statesman, 11 July 2025
Adjective
  • Some movie-goers love that sort of lugubrious, meditative filmmaking, some not so much, but either way — and to paraphrase Carly Simon — nobody does it better.
    Benjamin Svetkey, HollywoodReporter, 28 June 2025
  • The lugubrious $190 million musical was a sad clown face on all fronts, cast into the dunk tank by critics and posting a D CinemaScore from audiences — the first comic-book title ever to earn such a low exit-poll grade.
    Chris Lee, Vulture, 7 Oct. 2024
Adjective
  • Tim Burton’s two marvelous Batman movies took the character’s morose nature seriously, but not more seriously than his savoir faire: the Burton Batman movies also have gothic elegance on their side.
    Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 11 July 2025
  • In an intimate huddle, Costello and his band members harmonized on the morose country track, all underscored with plucky upright bass.
    Audrey Gibbs, The Tennessean, 6 July 2025
Adjective
  • The Handmaid's Tale wrapped its sixth and final season on a triumphant, if melancholic, note.
    Randall Colburn, EW.com, 27 May 2025
  • It’s shaped by my love of the melancholic songwriting traditions of Europe from composers like Monteverdi and John Dowland, all the way to ’90s Eurodance and the uplifting trance of the 2000s—artists like Gigi D’Agostino and Alice Deejay.
    Walden Green, Pitchfork, 8 July 2025
Adjective
  • Filmed in snowy Vancouver and set to some of the most melancholy songs Leonard Cohen ever recorded, the film lets a sense of fatalism hang over even its lightest moments.
    Keith Phipps, Vulture, 18 July 2025
  • It’s hushed, melancholy and rending in all the best ways.
    John Wenzel, Denver Post, 16 July 2025
Adjective
  • Yet people remain dejected about the economy, according to the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment.
    Josh Boak, Fortune, 11 Dec. 2023
  • Loneliness is on the rise in the American workforce and may be a major reason so many people feel dejected and uninspired at their desks.
    Kells McPhillips, Fortune Well, 16 Oct. 2023

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Cite this Entry

“Mirthless.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mirthless. Accessed 26 Jul. 2025.

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