How to Use parlor game in a Sentence

parlor game

noun
  • For the rest of us, the parlor game is on – who signs where, and for how much?
    Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, 5 Nov. 2019
  • Talk of it is a parlor game, and sightings of it are a mirage, whether in left-wing form or in rightist form.
    Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, 6 Nov. 2020
  • Here, Hickey talks to T&C about the enduring appeal of the show—and the parlor game named after it.
    Adam Rathe, Town & Country, 8 May 2017
  • Married guys gather at someone’s house to play a parlor game, drink beer and talk.
    Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2024
  • Forget street parades and cookouts, bring in the parlor games and heavy roasted meats.
    oregonlive, 27 June 2023
  • From the news reports, one would be forgiven for concluding that the whole thing is a parlor game.
    Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 11 June 2021
  • It’s a common parlor game to bemoan our perilous state of local media in the States.
    Howard Homonoff, Forbes, 7 Mar. 2022
  • The former, although starting off as a parlor game, has been around since the 15th century.
    Alegría Adedeji, Harper's BAZAAR, 17 Feb. 2021
  • Perhaps the most charming method at the time was a parlor game called Hyaku-monogatari, or One Hundred Stories.
    Matt Alt, The New Yorker, 28 Aug. 2023
  • In the midst of the rage and soul-searching, unearthing the leaker has become a parlor game among the politically savvy.
    Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2022
  • As the corona clampdown is (please) coming to an end, there’s a new parlor game sweeping the nation.
    Andy Kessler, WSJ, 26 Apr. 2020
  • And this has fostered a new parlor game, giving the President's wife free advice.
    Fox News, 1 Apr. 2018
  • Trying to guess who was behind the ads became something of a parlor game in some Beltway circles.
    New York Times, 13 Sep. 2019
  • The comparisons can just feel like a highfalutin parlor game.
    David Marchese, New York Times, 31 May 2021
  • The new parlor game of guessing the weekly jobless claims total may not continue.
    Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, 25 Mar. 2020
  • Pre-modern capitalism had the air of a parlor game between the high and mighty, and was quite often in bad odor among rentier elites themselves.
    Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 16 Aug. 2010
  • In truth the novel did have the appeal of a parlor game, a roman à clef inviting readers to guess the identities of the movie stars on whom the characters were loosely based.
    Peter Biskind, Los Angeles Times, 2 June 2020
  • When Larry McMurtry died in March 2021, predicting the fate of the bookstore and the thousands of books stacked inside became a routine parlor game.
    Ed Lavandera, CNN, 22 Feb. 2023
  • The novel opens in Lake Geneva in 1816, the site of literary history’s most famous parlor game.
    Ron Charles, Washington Post, 15 Oct. 2019
  • His father, the plantation owner, sometimes calls upon his son to display this gift as a kind of parlor game.
    Joan Gaylord, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Oct. 2019
  • The Hollywood parlor game of who is going to invest first has already begun.
    Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times, 2 Oct. 2017
  • Meanwhile, the Times’s Mark Leibovich also swings by for some premature 2020 parlor games.
    Jon Kelly, The Hive, 22 Dec. 2017
  • Well, the global economic recovery has now ticked all the boxes, and the new parlor game on Wall Street is predicting the top of the bull market and the peak of the economic cycle.
    Rob Curran, WSJ, 6 May 2018
  • His inevitable firing became a parlor game in Washington, and his post-White House future seemed bleak.
    Tina Nguyen, vanityfair.com, 31 Aug. 2017
  • Figuring out who was behind the videos became somewhat of a parlor game because no name was attached to the TikTok account that published the videos.
    Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 2 Mar. 2021
  • Predicting the demise of the New England Patriots is a long-running parlor game that leaves no winners, only regret and fools.
    Adam Kilgore, courant.com, 9 Dec. 2019
  • And, if a housewarming party is on the calendar, bring a fun parlor game like Shinola's dominos set.
    Elise Taylor, Vogue, 7 Oct. 2020
  • Drinks are also available for the guests, of course, and the show will also feature live music and parlor games for an interactive element.
    Adam Lukach, RedEye Chicago, 5 July 2018
  • The parlor game of global South leadership also pulls focus from the real challenges facing small and medium-sized states.
    Comfort Ero, Foreign Affairs, 1 Apr. 2024
  • Surrealists turned a pen-and-paper parlor game into a whole new mode of expression.
    Angela Watercutter, Wired, 12 Apr. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'parlor game.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: