denouement
in a sentence

Everyone was astonished by the denouement of the case.
denouement = outcome

She remembered reading them in Mr. Pierce's seventh-grade English class, talking about symbolism, metaphors, and denouement. (source) Sara Shepard, Pretty Little Liars, 2006
denouement = the final resolution of the main complication of a literary work

Upon hearing this denouement, the Count felt a great sense of relief.† (source)

I now had a choice of slipping away and insulting my host or staying and becoming entangled in Chablis's inevitable denouement.† (source)

Real life seldom structures a decent denouement.† (source) Dan Simmons, Hyperion, 1989

The rebirths/baptisms have a lot of common threads, but every drowning is serving its own purpose: character revelation, thematic development of violence or failure or guilt, plot complication or denouement.† (source)

It was probably this universal concurrence that had saved Billford's practice — if not his head — following the ghastly denouement.† (source) Stephen King, Misery, 1987

He waited until 10:00 p.m. before he gave up and drove back to Norsjö, where he had a late dinner and then went to bed to read the denouement of Val McDermid's novel.† (source)

After years of watching women quietly accept abuse, it is cathartic to see someone like Usha lead a countercharge—even if we're uncomfortable with the bloody denouement and cannot condone murder.† (source) Nicholas D. Kristof, Half the Sky, 2009

Deaths and disclosures, universal and particular, denouements both unexpected and inexorable, transvestite melodrama on all levels including the suggestive.† (source)

He began laughing and as he laughed, he moved in with amazing speed and grace for the denouement.† (source)

show 26 more with this conextual meaning

The tension began to build, and I found myself clutching the telescope as I waited for the denouement, wondering what had prompted George's swift transformation.† (source) Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf, 1963

I thought there was going to be a denouement of tragic scope.† (source) William Styron, Sophie's Choice, 1976

The denouement had come as an additional blow.† (source) Alfred Bester, The Demolished Man, 1953

While suspicion was to be directed against him, she would be making quiet preparations for a very different denouement. (source)

This ....well, I've heard of denouement, but this is ridiculous.† (source) Stephen King, Misery, 1987

There was yet another novelistic roundness in this denouement: they were the same two cops who had come the other day to question Annie about Kushner, David and Goliath.† (source) Stephen King, Misery, 1987

Berger and Eriksson had talked through what needed to be done, but the immediate situation was complicated by the fact that Blomkvist and Berger knew what role Salander had played in the denouement of the Wennerström affair—in her capacity as elite-level hacker she had been Blomkvist's secret source.† (source)

Finally, he summed up the dénouement in Gosseberga which led to Salander's being shot and buried alive, and explained how a policeman's death was a needless catastrophe because Niedermann had already been captured.† (source)

At some point not long after their writing I must have torn them out in despair from the ledger-like book in which I kept my journal, stowing them away in a clumsy wad at the back of the ledger, where I ran across them by luck even as I was re-creating the denouement of this goofy masquerade.† (source) William Styron, Sophie's Choice, 1976

I hugged Sophie softly and thought of my book; a thrill of pride and contentment went through me when I considered the honest workmanship I had so far put into the story, making its predestined way with grace and beauty toward the blazing denouement which remained to be set down but which I had already foretokened in my mind a thousand times: the tormented, alienated girl going to her lonely death on the indifferent summertime streets of the city I had just left behind.† (source) William Styron, Sophie's Choice, 1976

They considered the enormous English wickedness in silence, overwhelmed by its denouement.† (source)

"What an amazing denouement that was," I said.† (source) Agatha Christie, The ABC Murders, 1936

"I don't think you would have cared for its DENOUEMENT," he said with sudden grimness.† (source) Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, 1905

He was impatient as the jest elaborately rolled on to its denouement.† (source) Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 1922

DENOUEMENT—isn't that too big a word for such a small incident?† (source) Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, 1905

He had no intention, as yet, of regulating the denouement.† (source) Henry James, Washington Square, 1880

It was not until close upon six o'clock that I found myself free and was able to spring into a hansom and drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be too late to assist at the dénouement of the little mystery.† (source)

IT BEGAN like that—and continued, with varying shades of intensity, on such a note right up to the denouement.† (source)

And after that she could go her way, as surely she must; then, seeing that he would have done all that he could for her he would go his way to the glorious denouement that lay directly before him in case only this were adjusted.† (source)

He was not sorry for the denouement of his visit: he only wished it had come sooner, and spared him a certain waste of emotion.† (source)

She followed in imagination the career of other beauties, pointing out to her daughter what might be achieved through such a gift, and dwelling on the awful warning of those who, in spite of it, had failed to get what they wanted: to Mrs. Bart, only stupidity could explain the lamentable denouement of some of her examples.† (source) Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, 1905

Her story was as full of desperation and despair as her limited acquaintance with those uncomfortable emotions enabled her to make it, and having located it in Lisbon, she wound up with an earthquake, as a striking and appropriate denouement.† (source) Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, 1868

After which harrowing denouement sufficient to appal the stoutest he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.† (source) James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922

And then the usual denouement after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got 1190 landed into hot water and had to be spirited away by a few friends, after a strong hint to a blind horse from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so as not to be made amenable under section two of the criminal law amendment act, certain names of those subpoenaed being handed in but not divulged for reasons which will occur to anyone with a pick of brains.† (source) James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922

is judgment, (Nature accepts him absolutely,)
He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun failing round
helpless thing,
As he sees the farthest he has the most faith,
His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,
In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent,
He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement,
He sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and women
as dreams or dots.† (source) Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855

I see Freedom, completely arm'd and victorious and very haughty,
with Law on one side and Peace on the other,
A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of caste;
What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?† (source) Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855

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denouementin a sentence

denouement
in a sentence