How to Use torpid in a Sentence

torpid

adjective
  • After a torpid start, Williams recovered from a 2-4 deficit to take the first set and then opened the second set by winning the first 11 points of the second set.
    Ben Rothenberg, New York Times, 19 Mar. 2016
  • But given the stock’s torpid performance, opening the wallet is a risk that Biogen needs to take.
    Charley Grant, WSJ, 24 Apr. 2018
  • That sent torpid old companies like GameStop, the bricks-and-mortar games retailer, on a rocket ride.
    Los Angeles Times, 2 Feb. 2022
  • No matter who replaces him — and a young, ambitious coach to re-energize a torpid club is the order of the day — that person will have to rebuild morale, reshape the squad and restore purpose.
    Rory Smith, New York Times, 20 Apr. 2018
  • The former is a torpid scene of two young boys tending a ragged field alongside a bony horse with a US brand on its haunch — picking up the pieces in the immediate aftermath of a nation shattered by war.
    BostonGlobe.com, 4 Oct. 2019
  • Not long after a pair of New York real estate speculators founded this city on the banks of a torpid bayou in the 1830s, every home and every business flooded.
    Manny Fernandez and Richard Fausset, New York Times, 30 Aug. 2017
  • Investors fear that the world is turning into Japan, with a torpid economy that struggles to vanquish deflation, and is hence prone to going backwards.
    The Economist, 17 Aug. 2019
  • Les Bleus had churned out a pair of workmanlike victories over Australia and Peru before settling for a torpid scoreless draw against Denmark.
    Joshua Robinson, WSJ, 30 June 2018
  • If the wheels of justice turn slowly, the wheels of legislature follow a crushingly torpid, if sometimes erratic, path.
    Kyle Wiens and Sina Khanifar, WIRED, 10 July 2014
  • Monday’s men’s college championship between Virginia and Texas Tech was widely predicted to be a duck: a snoozy, asleep-on-the couch-by-10 p.m. bore, thanks to two torpid, defense-first, low-scoring outfits certain...
    Jason Gay, WSJ, 9 Apr. 2019
  • No matter how much my more musically savvy friends tried to point out its greatness, Brahms’ famous choral work has always struck me as a torpid affair with orchestral textures as thick as molasses.
    Patrick Neas, kansascity, 25 June 2018
  • But his previous effort, 2017’s Last Flag Flying, was a dull affair, with an amazing ensemble wasted on a torpid narrative.
    David Sims, The Atlantic, 16 Aug. 2019
  • Hamsters, for example, can instead enter a torpid state that actually protects their cells from ageing over winter.
    Christopher Turbill, CNN, 11 May 2017
  • With his current approval ratings topping 80%, he is set to easily win another six-year term in a race against torpid veterans of past election campaigns, like Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov.
    Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY, 7 Oct. 2017
  • Kentucky’s sophomore linebacker reversed the torpid trend of the Wildcats’ season opener Saturday afternoon by forcing a fumble on Toledo’s first play of the third quarter, and then delivering a drive-killing sack on the Rockets’ next possession.
    Tim Sullivan, The Courier-Journal, 31 Aug. 2019
  • The decision to combine bloody-minded perversity with a torpid tempo is certainly daring.
    N.b., The Economist, 20 June 2019
  • Thomas and cinematographer Inti Briones know when to push that air of torpid beauty too — the black-and-white imagery is simultaneously past-evocative and languidly atmospheric.
    Robert Abele, latimes.com, 25 Jan. 2018
  • This is a team that can, in the span of minutes, transform from a single-minded unit capable of blitzing top-ranked Duke into a disjointed collection of torpid individuals who can just as easily surrender a 16-point second-half lead.
    Nick Moyle, San Antonio Express-News, 8 Feb. 2018
  • Klein is probably expected to bring the improved focus on operations needed to deliver the profit goal, and Morgan the cloud experience needed to accelerate the so far torpid adoption of its products in that market.
    Alex Webb | Bloomberg, Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2019
  • China’s currency has fallen more than 5% against the dollar this year, with analysts pointing to trade tensions as a major factor behind increasingly torpid economic figures out of Beijing.
    David Hodari, WSJ, 18 Sep. 2018
  • With the market for larger corporate plans particularly torpid, Embraer has resisted offering business versions of the newer E2 family of passenger jets, Amalfitano said.
    Christopher Jasper, Bloomberg.com, 22 May 2017
  • Asian equities indexes moved slightly lower, with both the Shanghai and Shenzhen composite indexes down 0.1% after unofficial purchasing managers index data signaled torpid growth in the country’s manufacturing sector in April.
    Joanne Chiu, WSJ, 2 May 2018

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