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Definition
annoying attempt to sound smart or importantor more rarely (and typically in classic literature):
expressing wisdom or knowledge concisely
- Too often, she answers a tough question with a sententious banality.
sententious = trying (but failing) to be verbally impressive
- The program has outstanding cinematography and music with a little sententious narration.
- She hates his sententious manner of speaking.
- She has grown a bit sententious in old age.
- He was sententious and didactic that night.Dickens, Charles -- Little Dorrit
- The pilot turned out to be a good-natured specimen of his kind, condescending, sententious.Conrad, Joseph -- Chance
- 'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said sententiously.George Orwell -- 1984
- Algernon. Then your wife will. You don't seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none.
Jack. [Sententiously.] That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.Oscar Wilde -- The Importance of Being Earnest - By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.William Shakespeare -- As You Like It
- 'The quickness of the hand deceives the eye,' said Poirot sententiously-and caught the sudden change in the Colonel's expression.Agatha Christie -- Early Cases Of Hercule Poirot
- "We must study resignation," said Mrs. Penniman, hesitating, but sententious at a venture.Henry James -- Washington Square
- "Three days afterwards he was in his grave," said Mrs. Bread, sententiously.Henry James -- The American
- 'After a blow,' said a Spiti man sententiously, 'it is best to sleep.'Rudyard Kipling -- Kim
- Colonel Cathcart clucked sententiously, shocked by the suggestion.Joseph Heller -- Catch-22
- Chang added, a little sententiously: "It has always been her way to spare her lovers the moment of satiety that goes with all absolute attainment."James Hilton -- Lost Horizon
- "There was many a good man went to the penny-a-week school with a sod of turf under his oxter," said Mr. Kernan sententiously.James Joyce -- Dubliners
- "My boy," said Caderousse sententiously, "one can talk while eating.Alexandre Dumas -- The Count of Monte Cristo
- He was sententious and didactic that night.Charles Dickens -- Little Dorrit
- Well, she says we ought to because they have to live very dull, stupid lives compared with think-picture people,' Petra said, somewhat sententiously.John Wyndham -- The Chrysalids
- A parable of the soul, as his Latin teacher had pointed out so sententiously, Amina being a crude anagram for anima.Margaret Atwood -- Alias Grace
sententious = concise and full of meaning
sententious = annoying attempt to sound smart or important
sententiously = in an annoying attempt to sound smart
sententiously = pompously moralizing
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