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
  • Zoom in: The Balkan beer scene is one-note, by American craft beer standards.
    Sam Allard, Axios, 17 Sep. 2024
  • In the hands of a less talented filmmaker, The Babadook could have been a one-note story.
    Jennifer M. Wood, WIRED, 25 Oct. 2024
  • 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
  • Rather than a one-note visual, moody blue is a whole-body experience.
    Mare Czinar, The Arizona Republic, 4 Oct. 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
  • Almut cringes at the idea of being commemorated in such a one-note fashion.
    Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times, 10 Oct. 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
  • But by and large, they’re mostly introduced as a series of one-note obstacles whose defeat brings Deku one step closer to Dark Might.
    David Opie, IndieWire, 7 Oct. 2024
  • 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
  • As Younger Elliott, Stella’s performance does, too, adding a level of depth and relatability to a character who might have come across as angst-ridden and one-note in any other movie.
    Katherine Singh, refinery29.com, 13 Sep. 2024
  • 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

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.

Last Updated: