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 Singing off-key, dancing around, and grabbing a slice of pizza before heading out kept her in high spirits. Larry Stansbury, Essence, 19 Sep. 2025 And broadcasting your irritation too loudly risks ruining the atmosphere for everyone else just as much as their yelling or off-key chants. Mary Catherine McAnnally Scott, Southern Living, 6 Sep. 2025 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
  • Other cuts start as pop songs before crashing into atonal messes and freak rock chaos.
    Jed Gottlieb, Boston Herald, 13 Sep. 2025
  • 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
Adjective
  • Playing a French player at Roland Garros is usually one of the more unpleasant tasks in tennis, given how rowdy the crowd can get when rooting for one of their own on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
    Matthew Futterman, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2025
  • But for all of those unpleasant aspects, the series’ ultimate concentration is on the Marines as a worthy organization devoted to helping mostly young men learn discipline, honor and the proper mechanics for a pull-up.
    Daniel Fienberg, HollywoodReporter, 9 Oct. 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 19 Oct. 2025.

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