5 uses
(click/touch triangles for details)
Definition
careful examination of something
- And then there followed a period of time in which she scrutinized my face—for any telltale indication of the race of my missing male ancestor, I would guess.p. 113.1
- Everyone was always staring at my mother, but the scrutiny seemed especially intense that day, or else I am remembering it acutely because it was the last time I saw her alive.p. 34.6
- Mr. Merrill gazed undistracted toward center stage, apparently transfixed by the crack where the curtain would part; he appeared to believe that by his special scrutiny of this opening, by a supreme act of concentration, he might inspire the curtains to open.p. 241.3
- ...May 9, 1987—Gary Hart, a former U.S. senator from Colorado, quit his campaign for the presidency after some Washington reporters caught him shacked up for the weekend with a Miami model; although both the model and the candidate claimed that nothing "immoral" occurred—and Mrs. Hart said that she supported her husband, or maybe it was that she "understood" him—Mr. Hart decided that such intense scrutiny of his personal life created an "intolerable situation" for him and his family'.p. 304.9
- Old Thorny was an amateur naturalist and an amateur diarist, and after he retired from Gravesend Academy, he spent two years scrutinizing a tidepool in Rye Harbor; at his own expense, he published a book about it and sold autographed copies of the book every Alumni Day.p. 317.7
There are no more uses of "scrutiny" in A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Typical Usage
(best examples)