How to Use carny in a Sentence

carny

noun
  • Why did the carny let the sucker win the giant teddy bear?
    WIRED, 23 Jan. 2023
  • The format is a stop-gap, a novelty, an experiment with a hint of carny.
    Christopher Borrelli, chicagotribune.com, 20 Sep. 2020
  • Most of all, it’s filled with a carny’s pure joy in his capacity to wow, astonish, and entertain.
    Noah Berlatsky, The Verge, 13 Nov. 2018
  • This is a vision of the nation that has been sold to us by a generation of politicians who talk brave and act gutless, and by the carny shills in the employ of the industries of death.
    Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 2 Oct. 2017
  • In Guillermo del Toro's film noir, a very ambitious carny (Bradley Cooper) conjures up a golden ticket to success by swindling the elite of 1940s society.
    Chaise Sanders, Country Living, 13 May 2022
  • The two fighters have kept the fires burning in the four years since the fight, occasionally promising a rematch even though Mayweather is now 42 and subsisting on carny fights against MMA stars and kickboxers.
    Matt Bonesteel, The Denver Post, 24 July 2019
  • On Friday, carny Daman Munk was making ready his mechanical bull for the paying customers, who will begin arriving Saturday for the fair’s nine-day run.
    Steve Rubenstein, SFChronicle.com, 7 June 2019
  • It’s about an itinerant carny (Cooper, in a roll originated by Tyrone Power) who learns the secrets of a mind-reading act and uses them to take advantage of wealthy but gullible victims.
    Jim Kiest and Deborah Martin, San Antonio Express-News, 13 Dec. 2021
  • But his museums had venues for dramas and became family affairs with discount tickets for the kiddies — doing for theater what Walt Disney would do for the carny amusement park.
    Jack Hitt, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2019
  • As the morality play unfolds in its otherwise predictable path, Pinocchio must first contend with enslavement by an evil carny (Christoph Waltz), then conscription into the Italian armed forces.
    Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, 14 Nov. 2022
  • Another carny, Molly (Rooney Mara), a beacon of uncorruptible sympathy, becomes Stan’s next stepping stone, stage partner and wife.
    Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 15 Dec. 2021
  • Parker’s narration of the film adds another layer to the experience, as the former carny–turned–rock and roll manager is an unreliable narrator if ever there was one.
    Grant Wong, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 June 2022
  • Barnum displayed physical freaks; psychoanalyst Krafft-Ebing categorized and explained mental freaks; carny Daniel Mannix showed that geeks were just like you and me.
    Charles Paul Freund, WIRED, 1 Oct. 2000
  • Combining old-fashioned practicality with the shameless hustle of a sideshow carny and driven by a narcissistic thirst for attention, Davis, who patented the body armor in the early 1970s, certainly makes for a timely protagonist.
    Michael Rechtshaffen, Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'carny.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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