as in flatteringly
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Recent Examples of unctuously
In my experience, moisturizers for dry skin tend to be unctuously thick, which can trigger breakouts, while those made for oily skin are often too light to make a difference.
—
Jacqueline Kilikita, Refinery29, 22 Jan. 2026
Jacqueline Kilikita, Refinery29, 22 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unctuously
Adverb
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Modestly cut and flatteringly designed, this short set is elegant enough to wear from day to night.—
Alexandra Emanuelli,
Southern Living,
4 Mar. 2026
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The high elastic waistband flatteringly cinches without pinching, according to one shopper, and the baggy wide-leg design gives your legs room to move through long airport lines and eight-hour workdays.—
Chaise Sanders,
Travel + Leisure,
22 Oct. 2025
Adverb
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The Vatican’s 2023 declaration allowing an informal blessing, promulgated with virtually no consultation outside the Vatican, sharply divided the church, with African bishops delivering a continent-wide dissent and refusing to implement it.—
Nicole Winfield,
Fortune,
23 Apr. 2026
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Acting Director Nick Anderson testified that staffing has dropped to roughly 40%, sharply limiting the agency's ability to monitor threats and conduct outreach.—
Nicole Sganga,
CBS News,
23 Apr. 2026
Adverb
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The country star was slyly announced with the release of the weekend two schedule.—
Steven J. Horowitz,
Variety,
15 Apr. 2026
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While noirs, of course, critique the crumbling American Dream, Rivera slyly comments on politics.—
Sammy Loren,
Los Angeles Times,
18 Mar. 2026
Adverb
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The show, which followed a crooked New Mexican lawyer, played by Bob Odenkirk, was an archly funny drama, shot partly in gritty black-and-white.—
Rachel Syme,
New Yorker,
29 Sep. 2025
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Much as Wes Anderson and Yorgos Lanthimos have plumbed Dafoe’s deliciously wicked sense of humor in pieces that straddle the line between the real and the archly stylized, Solnicki understands that a strong Dafoe performance must always teeter between the two.—
Manuel Betancourt,
Variety,
28 Sep. 2025
Adverb
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But cunningly, in the years since 1945—and responsibly and rightly, too—the United States put together a system where most of the other strong countries were also friends.—
David Frum,
The Atlantic,
8 Apr. 2026
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Instead of kings and queens cunningly maneuvering their armies against their enemies, there’s only an ox of a man and a bald little boy, neither of whom exhibits a clearly superior intellect.—
Ben Travers,
IndieWire,
13 Jan. 2026
Adverb
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Often nearly invisible to the naked eye, microplastics have insidiously found their way into people’s lungs, arterial plaques and brains through food, air and water, researchers have found.—
Kate Nishimura,
Footwear News,
7 Apr. 2026
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His dramas set domestic conflicts against the backdrop of societal systems that insidiously warp the playing field for their characters.—
Theater Critic,
Los Angeles Times,
1 Apr. 2026
Adverb
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Some players struggled against the size of bigger and stronger players, while others craftily created space with deft footwork and manipulation.—
Devin Robertson,
MSNBC Newsweek,
27 Aug. 2025
Adverb
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Unlike Monday's burial for Princess Irene, which follows a Saturday prayer service in Madrid and a funeral Monday at Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, the Tatoi interment for Sofia's mother, Queen Federica of Greece, was not official, and took place almost furtively.—
Diego Parrado,
Vanity Fair,
18 Jan. 2026
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This has become the central theme of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City—probably the most chaotic show in its franchise—whose characters are always trying to root out which of their frenemies is furtively digging up dirt and spreading rumors about their legal or financial woes.—
Judy Berman,
Time,
5 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Unctuously.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unctuously. Accessed 27 Apr. 2026.
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