How to Use one-note in a Sentence

one-note

adjective
  • Which isn’t to say that his style is one-note – it’s never been.
    Julian Randall, Essence, 24 May 2024
  • The less said about Kraven's snarling, one-note performance, the better.
    Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 17 Oct. 2023
  • As such, the role could have easily been reduced to a bit part or a one-note villain.
    TIME, 13 Oct. 2023
  • And although one of Patrick’s gifts to us is her honesty, at times the book felt repetitive and too one-note.
    Steven Petrow, Washington Post, 14 May 2023
  • Slow, ballad-y verses that build to an epic one-note melody chorus.
    Eli Miller, Vulture, 16 June 2023
  • Wilson is a skilled actor who doesn’t play a one-note foil for Momoa’s antics.
    Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times, 22 Dec. 2023
  • Fabian is mostly a one-note character, and that’s the note—peeved outrage.
    Sarah Larson, The New Yorker, 8 Feb. 2024
  • Audiences could safely assume the movies’ one-note joke — a children’s toy that swears like a grown-up! — had run its course.
    Alison Herman, Variety, 11 Jan. 2024
  • The actress indeed does a lot with a role that could easily be one-note, stealing nearly every scene in the process.
    Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Nov. 2023
  • Lively’s charm can only carry Lily so far before the character starts to feel too one-note.
    Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Aug. 2024
  • His keyboard player Kenny, king of the one-note solo, is holding down that B-flat organ key while waiting for the changes to come around again and catch up to his note.
    Bart Bull, SPIN, 20 Feb. 2023
  • For all that, his Arthur remains a lowly outsider, with a downcast gaze, a peevish temper, and a deep well of melancholy that never feels one-note.
    Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 28 Mar. 2024
  • In what at first feels like a one-note role, Maupas subtly finds the depths of hope beneath Severino’s judgmental surface.
    Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Aug. 2023
  • The system doesn’t typify one-note characters, just as real life shouldn’t.
    WIRED, 26 July 2023
  • Russia is pretty much a one-note economy: Fossil fuel exports pay the bills.
    David Cay Johnston, The New Republic, 30 Mar. 2023
  • A little of this goes a very long way, especially when the Bandits themselves are relatively one-note.
    Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 23 July 2024
  • For all the wit and care of the performances, Malcolm and JB register as one-note ciphers because the adaptation cuts them down to little more than plot functionaries.
    David Benedict, Variety, 5 Apr. 2023
  • Beethoven’s Fifth, ending Saturday’s program, appeared to be headed the same direction after a one-note first movement.
    Hannah Edgar, Chicago Tribune, 14 July 2024
  • Designers never walk into a single showroom or store and outfit an entire room; that would result in an overly trendy, one-note design.
    Ryan Conner, Dallas News, 10 Mar. 2023
  • Lynch is nuanced enough to make Frank a memorably self-loathing villain instead of a one-note stooge, which ultimately makes the show more rewarding as a drama than as comedy.
    Chris Klimek, Washington Post, 10 Apr. 2024
  • The later films in the original Apes series struggle with creating a compelling human element, and the humans in Battle are painfully one-note.
    Barry Levitt, Vulture, 10 May 2024
  • The aspects that his acolytes push into one-note histrionics or weirder-than-thou eccentricity are all here, but in the right proportions, with dancers who have been trained and coached to maintain the right frequencies.
    Brian Seibert, New York Times, 2 Mar. 2023
  • But the book operates as a reminder — never dull, often stinging — of what is lost when nuanced argument is supplanted by one-note bullhorns.
    David Amsden, Los Angeles Times, 2 Jan. 2024
  • But Hacks brings depth to a character who could otherwise be one-note — and Olson points to DJ’s pregnancy as a new obstacle in her fractured relationship with her mom.
    Tyler Coates, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 June 2024
  • There was nothing nice to say about the dry pork chop, which couldn’t be salvaged even after a dip in the accompanying honey and roasted garlic sauce, or a one-note side dish of creamed spinach doing a great imitation of glue.
    Tom Sietsema, Washington Post, 29 Sep. 2023
  • Holga’s comments begin to sound one-note, and patience wears thin with Simon’s diffidence and Doric’s indifference.
    Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Mar. 2023
  • Balanchine’s choreography was suddenly a one-note affair; this was a terrible way to show off his legacy.
    Gia Kourlas, New York Times, 6 Oct. 2023
  • With the female characters sidelined to one-note cheerleaders, Clooney puts his focus on the fantastic production design.
    Amy Nicholson, New York Times, 24 Dec. 2023
  • One of the biggest weaknesses of Lucas’s partnership with fellow comedian Noel Fielding was their one-note double act.
    James Hansen, Bon Appétit, 28 Sep. 2023
  • Some characters offer poetic asides, but these become part of a one-note exploration of national and cultural mood.
    Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 13 Sep. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'one-note.' 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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