off-key

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 off-key Yet in subsequent editions, the Muirs, or perhaps their publishers, rejected that suitably plain title and replaced it with the storied but off-key Metamorphosis. Mark Harman august 8, Literary Hub, 8 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for off-key
Adjective
  • Her aesthetics and tuneless vocals left audiences in awe and laughter.
    Raquel Willis, Time, 19 June 2025
  • For the rest of us, a real musical comedy is a cause for celebration; most are either too tuneless to be musicals or too dull to be comedies.
    Jesse Green, New York Times, 11 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Riley, a Northern California native, who has always exuded a Zen-like geniality, was part of a generation of young American composers who had turned away from audience-alienating atonal music, which had been proselytized by their teachers in the science-minded postwar academy.
    William Robin, New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2025
  • In fact, the entire film can't decide whether to embrace the silly or the serious — and yet somehow, that atonal balance works.
    Devan Coggan, EW.com, 3 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • The first season of The Office was particularly unpleasant at times, with some of Michael’s most appalling behavior, and The Paper avoids this almost entirely.
    Erik Kain, Forbes.com, 3 Sep. 2025
  • If the egg smells unpleasant or has discoloration, discard the egg.
    Merve Ceylan, Health, 2 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • Over the weekend, reports emerged that the higher tariffs followed a disagreeable Thursday phone call between Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter and Trump — which Swiss officials rejected, according to Reuters.
    Sophie Kiderlin,Jenni Reid, CNBC, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Trump and his supporters prefer a happy history, a pleasant history that arouses patriotism by overlooking disagreeable people and despicable events that sully the nation’s reputation and mar the magnificence of the American story.
    William C. Hine, Twin Cities, 23 July 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Off-key.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/off-key. Accessed 8 Sep. 2025.

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