How to Use pungency in a Sentence

pungency

noun

• Feta cheese creams out the pesto and tames the pungency of the broccoli.
  — Christian Reynoso, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 Sep. 2021
• The sauce is honeyed and tomato-rich, faintly spicy, with a pinch of oregano added at the end for pungency.
  — Sam Sifton, New York Times, 29 May 2018
• The Reaper clocks in at 2.2 million Scoville heat units (the Scoville scale is used to gauge the pungency of chili peppers).
  — Craig Hlavaty, Houston Chronicle, 21 Mar. 2018
• The oyster sauce lends the dish a rich savoriness without the pungency that can come with seafood.
  — Amber Lee, Bon Appétit, 18 Nov. 2020
• The pungency of its timbre puts the ears on alert and on edge: no one can fall into a blissful trance at an oboe recital.
  — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023
• But none of them has the musky pungency that makes the herb such a hallmark of Peruvian cooking.
  — Gustavo Arellanostaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 24 July 2019
• The highveld mole rat is immune to the pungency of mustard, radishes, and wasabi.
  — Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harper's magazine, 22 July 2019
• It clocks in at 2.2 million Scoville Heat Units (the Scoville scale is used to gauge the pungency of chile peppers).
  — Greg Morago, Houston Chronicle, 7 Feb. 2018
• There was a pungency in Apple’s torch-and-honey voice emitting growls, shrieks, and hoots.
  — Mick Stevens, The New Yorker, 12 Aug. 2021
• The pungency of the horseradish, which can make onions seem mild mannered, would make their eyes water.
  — Carol Deptolla, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 Apr. 2022
• The green onions add some pungency, and the cheddar cheese ensures that even the brisket that's not in direct contact with the mac n' cheese is still touching cheese.
  — Ted Berg, USA TODAY, 27 Oct. 2017
• The pungency does wonders for adding depth, heat, and extra oomph that takes it from good to memorable.
  — Antara Sinha, Bon Appétit, 13 Sep. 2022
• If it’s made well, the oil will strike a balance of fruitiness, bitterness and pungency.
  — Ted Trautman, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 June 2018
• The oppressive heat gave added pungency to the smell of human filth in the Girgaun district of Bombay's slums.
  — Lily Rothman, Time, 9 Aug. 2017
• This fried chicken takes on the umami of anchovy, the pungency of garlic, heat and spice for a quartet of flavors.
  — Christian Reynoso, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 June 2021
• Aroma dissipates but can linger The aroma has the sharp pungency of a rotten egg.
  — Richard Ruelas, azcentral, 27 Mar. 2018
• In terms of pungency, white are generally the mildest, red the sharpest, and yellow somewhere in between.
  — Alex Delany, Bon Appétit, 17 May 2021
• Soak them in cold water for 5 minutes, then drain; this will reduce their pungency.
  — The Washington Post, NOLA.com, 28 Dec. 2017
• Indians were slandered for the pungency of their spices.
  — David Sax, The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2017
• The tomatoes are bright and tangy, while the garlic cloves are melt-away mellowness with very little of the biting pungency of fresh garlic.
  — Paul Stephen, ExpressNews.com, 6 May 2020
• This is in no way a diss of Wilbur Scoville, the pharmacist who came up with this way of measuring pepper pungency back in, yes, 1912.
  — Tamar Haspel, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2022
• Crushed coconut, fresh cilantro and lemon juice form a base that gains heat from green chiles and additional pungency from onions and vinegar.
  — Becky Krystal, Washington Post, 4 Sep. 2020
• These chapters are held together not so much by theme as by pungency.
  — The New Yorker, 6 Sep. 2021
• The surprise was that the sharp, gamy pungency of the quails flavored the pork as much as the pork flavored them, an ancient taste that I had never suspected existed.
  — Jonathan Gold, latimes.com, 26 May 2017
• Then there’s an additional sense of pungency, [as in] the burning feeling of pepper from hot wings.
  — NBC News, 30 Oct. 2017
• And the focus on a real person over a period of years certainly adds pungency to the debate.
  — Stephen Farber, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Nov. 2019
• Judges described the thick-walled fruits as spicy, but tastier than the traditional cayenne, with just enough pungency for interest.
  — Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp, Indianapolis Star, 9 Feb. 2018
• Both the bratwurst and the wiener, reminiscent of a hot dog that spent a semester abroad, have a pleasantly snappy casing and a peppery pungency.
  — Washington Post, 20 Sep. 2019
• Don’t overlook Bilavarn’s papaya salad, a crisp, fragrant muddle underscored with the pungency of shrimp paste and fish sauce.
  — Patricia Escárcega, latimes.com, 3 July 2019
• His Mozart is beautiful without ever being pretty—the fortepiano’s innate pungency makes sure of that.
  — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 14 Nov. 2022

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024