How to Use on closer inspection in a Sentence

on closer inspection

idiom
  • And yet, on closer inspection, things don’t quite stack up.
    Thomas Lewton, Quanta Magazine, 23 Aug. 2022
  • Even the claim of deficit reduction doesn’t hold up on closer inspection.
    The Editors, National Review, 9 Aug. 2022
  • Yet, on closer inspection, the raids underscored the limits of the partnership.
    Nick Miroff, Washington Post, 12 Dec. 2022
  • No Like other proposals, this one sounds good but isn’t so good on closer inspection.
    NOLA.com, 5 Oct. 2020
  • And, on closer inspection, some of the hunchbacks are actually backpacks full of seeds.
    Bridget Alex, Discover Magazine, 9 Oct. 2020
  • Only on closer inspection does the viewer note a small photocopy of Bradley’s yearbook photo, high up amid the blackness.
    Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 7 June 2023
  • Only on closer inspection does the viewer note a small photocopy of Bradley’s yearbook photo, high up amid the blackness.
    Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 7 June 2023
  • But the polling data, on closer inspection, confirm that Trump and his twisted views retain a disturbing amount of support.
    John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 23 July 2022
  • But on closer inspection, there are differences: This cropper is shirtless, his backside a bit too pert, and the stalks of asparagus growing from the ground are, in fact, penises.
    Max Norman David Chow Victoria Petro-Conroy, New York Times, 19 Aug. 2022
  • But on closer inspection, the article is not really about the Palestinian issue at all.
    Michael Oren, Foreign Affairs, 31 May 2023
  • However, on closer inspection, the tech giants have made significant net additions to staff numbers over the past two years.
    Martin Reeves, Fortune, 29 Mar. 2023
  • But on closer inspection, more attentive visitors noticed a pair of strange, tongue-in-cheek placards sandwiched between the more official-sounding ones.
    Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 4 Nov. 2022
  • The final painting, titled Kiss (Bones and All), features a torrent of brushstrokes in bruise-like shades of purple, blue, and black; appearing almost entirely abstract at first, the features of the actors begin to emerge on closer inspection.
    Liam Hess, Vogue, 1 Sep. 2022
  • Solid canyon walls reveal themselves, on closer inspection, to be loose agglomerations of huge rocks, hiding crevasses as large as living rooms.
    Kelzim, Longreads, 19 Feb. 2022
  • Yet on closer inspection this was a Pyrrhic victory at best, for the court also ruled that the sole authority to apportion surpluses and shortages from the Colorado belonged to the federal government.
    Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 8 Feb. 2023
  • Though the art at first seemed more at home at the nearby Louvre Museum, on closer inspection the female subjects sported contemporary jarring double eyes and seemed to symbolize a sort of new female vision.
    Thomas Adamson, USA TODAY, 1 Mar. 2022
  • There are many examples of results which have been 'replicated' in many papers (i.e. with a high R-factor) yet which on closer inspection are statistically improbable.
    Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 21 Aug. 2017
  • The colorful, celebratory surface of her work can, on closer inspection, reveal a darker message.
    Bo Emerson, ajc, 30 Jan. 2023
  • Here too, Russia’s hype has been shown up – claims that Russia was already operating drone swarms in major exercises three years ago turned out on closer inspection to just mean multiple drones flown by multiple operators at the same time.
    Keir Giles, CNN, 25 Jan. 2023
  • The comparison between birth control and vaccine blood clots becomes problematic on closer inspection, experts say.
    Miriam Fauzia, USA TODAY, 23 Apr. 2021
  • Los Dioses, unfortunately, is more of a Both Worlds scenario, hampered by cookie cutter songwriting, conversant in popular sounds but always downwind of them, pleasant on the surface but frequently hollow on closer inspection.
    Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 25 Jan. 2021
  • But on closer inspection, investigators identified problems with the accounts.
    Adam Satariano, New York Times, 29 Jan. 2021
  • But on closer inspection, visitors might spot an unusual building material embedded in house foundations, walls and steep staircases: tombstones inscribed with Japanese characters.
    Jessie Yeung and Yoonjung Seo, CNN, 4 Oct. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'on closer inspection.' 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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