How to Use leitmotif in a Sentence

leitmotif

noun

• The score, with its eerie leitmotif, is by Howard Shore.
  — Bruce Weber, New York Times, 26 Apr. 2017
• Stuff like leitmotifs, or the way that certain set pieces feel like arias.
  — Simon Abrams, Esquire, 8 June 2016
• In the self-portrait, a windmill—a leitmotif in most of Wood’s landscapes—looms behind him against a yellow sky.
  — Steven Strogatz, The New Yorker, 5 Mar. 2018
• The same gesture was adopted after the putsch in Myanmar, the leitmotif of a protest movement millions strong.
  — New York Times, 12 Apr. 2021
• Other times, the first four notes are used in a leitmotif, especially when the ghosts are doing creepy things.
  — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 28 July 2023
• His blackened execution pyre stands in a barren field, a leitmotif driven like a stake through the heart of the film.
  — Elle Carroll, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2021
• The film has this leitmotif of inyeon, how people are fated to connect.
  — Jenelle Riley, Variety, 8 Jan. 2024
• The casual intrusion of food is a constant leitmotif of the books.
  — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 12 Sep. 2022
• Googly eyes are a central leitmotif of the film, for unknown reasons.
  — Michael O'Sullivan, Anchorage Daily News, 7 Apr. 2022
• His boys are coy, knowing, and lithe; the male odalisque, in a state of opulent undress, is a favorite leitmotif.
  — Christopher Alessandrini, The New York Review of Books, 18 May 2019
• Pastor Jon shows up for the first time on Page 96 and on 30 subsequent pages — a leitmotif of faith and enlightenment.
  — Washington Post, 23 Jan. 2020
• Miketta said that has been a leitmotif of the winter, a function of geography and how the storms have been positioned.
  — Anthony R. Wood, Philly.com, 21 Mar. 2018
• Celebrations were the leitmotif of this phase of our friendship.
  — Jessica B. Harris, Southern Living, 21 May 2020
• The panther has been Cartier’s leitmotif for more than a century.
  — Nancy Hass, New York Times, 26 Aug. 2020
• Here Levy upends a story that has some of the contours and leitmotifs of a cinematic Cold War mystery.
  — Rachel Donadio, The Atlantic, 11 Oct. 2019
• But the tower hearkens back to an important leitmotif of Arthur’s story.
  — Josephine Livingstone, New Republic, 18 May 2017
• Across the nine stories, in the leitmotif department, trepidations about turning 50 would get the nod.
  — Elinor Lipman, New York Times, 2 June 2017
• An oversize tubular cuff that mirrored the sleeve of a kimono was a leitmotif in Sacai’s 49-piece display that showcased both men’s and women’s designs.
  — Thomas Adamson, The Seattle Times, 24 June 2017
• Those noises are starting to turn up as audio leitmotifs in horror movies, for chrissakes.
  — Rob Beschizza, WIRED, 24 Jan. 2007
• That has not stopped that word — corrupt — from providing something of a leitmotif for this Premier League season.
  — Rory Smith, New York Times, 1 Mar. 2024
• His signature games are a master class in how to shift registers, how to strategize, how to create forms and patterns and leitmotifs.
  — Will Harrison, New York Times, 11 July 2023
• Of course, red is Rothko’s leitmotif and both works, arresting in scale, exemplify the artist’s torrid love affair with the color.
  — Ian Malone, Vogue, 11 May 2022
• All over a tuna salad which keeps reappearing as a leitmotif.
  — Roy Trakin, Variety, 11 June 2022
• While most analysts don’t think this means an imminent use of nuclear power, the hints are part of a leitmotif Putin has employed since the beginning of the war.
  — Laura King and Tracy Wilkinson, Anchorage Daily News, 27 Feb. 2023
• Among designers, for whom a strong, fashion-loving mother is a leitmotif, leopard print has been a constant for decades.
  — Nancy MacDonell, WSJ, 18 Sep. 2018
• The move fits with his Wagnerian influences, prizing leitmotif on top of the grand scope.
  — Ben Huberman, Longreads, 31 Oct. 2017
• For Sedaris a snapping turtle with a partly missing foot and a tumor on its head becomes an unlikely leitmotif.
  — Alan Cumming, New York Times, 25 May 2018
• At a tournament bombarded from all fronts by political concerns, the cause of Palestine is a kind of leitmotif.
  — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2022
• But a minority—just three out of 112—sang hybrid tunes, mixing leitmotifs from both the outgoing melody and the incipient one.
  — Ed Yong, The Atlantic, 24 July 2017
• The watery leitmotif here visually washes over the picture.
  — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, 19 Apr. 2023

Last Updated: 19 Dec 2024