Sample sentences for SENTENTIOUS

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Definition

annoying attempt to sound smart or important

or 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.

sententious = concise and full of meaning

She hates his sententious manner of speaking.

sententious = annoying attempt to sound smart or important

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

sententiously = in an annoying attempt to sound smart

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

sententiously = pompously moralizing

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

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