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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Citi also echoed in a note on Friday that sharply lower Chinese crude imports have helped moderate oil prices since the start of the Middle East conflict, reducing fears of a bidding war for supplies.—
Lee Ying Shan,
CNBC,
12 June 2026
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Meanwhile, stocks sharply rose.—
Sarah Dean,
NBC news,
12 June 2026
Adverb
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Lately, that pull has been toward Anna Christie—an underappreciated, slyly funny, stealthily feminist work by America’s greatest (and most tortured) playwright, which premiered on Broadway over a century ago.—
Adrienne Miller,
Vogue,
29 Oct. 2025
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The whole activity was a bit conceptually distracting—slyly or otherwise, Lawrence had maneuvered me into producing a portrait of her in her presence.—
Jia Tolentino,
New Yorker,
27 Oct. 2025
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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The Chinese delayed their retaliation for a while and then, very cunningly, took disproportionate revenge on Canada, recognizing Canada as the weaker link, who got less from the tariffs and were more exposed.—
David Frum,
The Atlantic,
4 Feb. 2026
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Promptly at nine, the garden gates opened on a scene of enchantment subtly designed to appeal to all the senses, cunningly lit, scented with strange perfumes to evoke vividly, as nothing but a perfume can, the suggestion which the setting was meant to convey….—
Laird Borrelli-Persson,
Vogue,
21 Jan. 2026
Adverb
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The experiment is that AI is being made available nationally and globally, which is either overtly or insidiously acting to provide mental health guidance of one kind or another.—
Lance Eliot,
Forbes.com,
24 May 2026
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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
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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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 18 Jun. 2026.
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