as in woebegone
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Recent Examples of mirthless
Yet there was a mirthless response from those around him; a realisation there was an element of truth to his chant.
—
Roshane Thomas, The Athletic, 30 Dec. 2024
His mirthless laugh might have suggested Kafkaesque persecution, or Hardyesque inexorability of fate.
—Tad Friend, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2024
Susan Faludi Laugh-In On the joyful Kamala Harris and the mirthless Donald Trump
Nathaniel Rich
Silent Spring
Why aren’t the candidates talking about climate change?
—Patricia J. Williams, The New York Review of Books, 18 Oct. 2024
Cheung, who has only one friend at work (Leo Chen), fields mirthless calls from his wife and daughter in Taiwan that are always about money, nothing else.
—Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 May 2024
Not so much for Ben Affleck, a Boston fan whose train wreck of a set aimed for a cartoonish attack on fans who criticize the quarterback but felt real and mirthless.
—Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 7 May 2024
In a fanciful twist, Texas and California have cast their red-blue animus aside and forged the Western Forces, a secessionist axis seeking to topple the President (the ruthless, mirthless Nick Offerman), a despot who has appointed himself to a third term.
—Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 12 Apr. 2024
The conversation plays out in full and without commentary: The irony of having to humor the advances of one man to prove those of another is plain and startling, though Ito, long hardened to such cruelties, also finds dry, mirthless humor in them.
—Guy Lodge, Variety, 26 Jan. 2024
Cline writes in a sleek, cool style that conveys both Alex’s naivete and her mirthless irony.
—Ron Charles, Washington Post, 9 May 2023
Roshane Thomas, The Athletic, 30 Dec. 2024
His mirthless laugh might have suggested Kafkaesque persecution, or Hardyesque inexorability of fate.
—Tad Friend, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2024
Susan Faludi Laugh-In On the joyful Kamala Harris and the mirthless Donald Trump
Nathaniel Rich
Silent Spring
Why aren’t the candidates talking about climate change?
—Patricia J. Williams, The New York Review of Books, 18 Oct. 2024
Cheung, who has only one friend at work (Leo Chen), fields mirthless calls from his wife and daughter in Taiwan that are always about money, nothing else.
—Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 May 2024
Not so much for Ben Affleck, a Boston fan whose train wreck of a set aimed for a cartoonish attack on fans who criticize the quarterback but felt real and mirthless.
—Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 7 May 2024
In a fanciful twist, Texas and California have cast their red-blue animus aside and forged the Western Forces, a secessionist axis seeking to topple the President (the ruthless, mirthless Nick Offerman), a despot who has appointed himself to a third term.
—Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 12 Apr. 2024
The conversation plays out in full and without commentary: The irony of having to humor the advances of one man to prove those of another is plain and startling, though Ito, long hardened to such cruelties, also finds dry, mirthless humor in them.
—Guy Lodge, Variety, 26 Jan. 2024
Cline writes in a sleek, cool style that conveys both Alex’s naivete and her mirthless irony.
—Ron Charles, Washington Post, 9 May 2023
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mirthless
Adjective
-
Sunday, the Sox, who are now an impossibly bad 31-100, locked up the sixth triple-digit-loss season in their woebegone history with a 9-4 defeat at the hands of the Detroit Tigers.—
Jon Greenberg,
The Athletic,
25 Aug. 2024
-
This is what passes for epiphany for the solemn, solitary Jane, who searches for self-knowledge in a woebegone key.—
Parul Sehgal,
The New Yorker,
5 Aug. 2024
Adjective
-
Wedged between the cheerless skyscrapers of Third Avenue and an uncharming stretch of Second, just blocks north of the bro bars of Murray Hill, is a row of nine townhouses.—
Adriane Quinlan,
Curbed,
2 Aug. 2024
-
Election polls may seem cheerless, inscrutable, and wrapped in data and murky terminology.—
W. Joseph Campbell,
Fortune,
29 Oct. 2024
Adjective
-
Especially sad is the case of Netta, one of Liat’s three children, who survived the attack.—
Jordan Mintzer,
The Hollywood Reporter,
20 Feb. 2025
-
The range of weapons and passive abilities that drop from major enemies just encourage different playstyles, rather than shoving you into a sad corner full of regrets.—
Josh Broadwell,
Rolling Stone,
19 Feb. 2025
Adjective
-
Look at picture No. 107 in the exhibition of 1874: another of Morisot’s lugubrious bourgeois bachelorettes.—
The Learning Network,
New York Times,
15 Jan. 2025
-
The locker room was far from lugubrious following an indicting 114-98 loss Tuesday to the weary and mediocre Miami Heat.—
Marcus Thompson II,
The Athletic,
8 Jan. 2025
Adjective
-
In this family road-trip pic set during the 2008 financial crisis, one disturbing sequence after another is played out on the morose face of John Magaro, who is clearly keeping the truth from them — and us — of what this journey is actually all about.—
Damon Wise,
Deadline,
2 Feb. 2025
-
The always astonishing Ben Whishaw plays the sweet, morose, gay, chain-smoking, furtively sincere, faraway-eyed Hujar, a veteran freelance photographer who was just coming into his own as a gallery artist and downtown scenester.—
Owen Gleiberman,
Variety,
27 Jan. 2025
Adjective
-
Renditions of those melancholic hymns, which often told of homesickness and heartbreak, played from a speaker in the courtyard.—
Chris Schalkx,
Travel + Leisure,
23 Feb. 2025
-
But as writers, Basden and Key avoid toothless syrupy sentiments all the same, and handle the melancholic resolution of Herb and Nell’s story in a masterful and realistic way that rings true to the heart.—
Tomris Laffly,
Variety,
27 Jan. 2025
Adjective
-
Even the quieter domestic dramas vying less for box-office glory and more for Academy Awards acclaim feature music lush with classical detail, like Carter Burwell’s melancholy strings in Carol, giving twinkly lyricism to the emotional violence roiling beneath the characters’ skins.—
Fran Hoepfner,
Vulture,
27 Feb. 2025
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Instead, their new record is merely 47 minutes and 17 seconds of relative silence and white noise, a melancholy display of the sound of music if there’s no artists to actually create it.—
Ethan Millman,
Rolling Stone,
25 Feb. 2025
Adjective
-
Yet people remain dejected about the economy, according to the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment.—
Josh Boak,
Fortune,
11 Dec. 2023
-
Loneliness is on the rise in the American workforce and may be a major reason so many people feel dejected and uninspired at their desks.—
Kells McPhillips,
Fortune Well,
16 Oct. 2023
Cite this Entry
“Mirthless.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mirthless. Accessed 3 Mar. 2025.
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