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monotonous
in a sentence

show 186 more with this conextual meaning
  • I remember the monotony. Digging foxholes. Slapping mosquitoes. The sun and the heat and the endless paddies.   (source)
    monotony = lack of variety
  • investigative reporting is mostly monotonous work, digging through thousands of words for the one word that doesn't ring true.   (source)
    monotonous = lacking in variety
  • One thing that helped to break the monotony of being locked in by the storm was the arrival of Leon and Eugene.   (source)
    monotony = lack of variety
  • I knew my family would be waiting to share news of the day. The very monotony I had lately disdained cried out to me: I am essential. Without me you will wither,   (source)
    monotony = lack of variety (consistent pattern)
  • The only sound is the monotonous hum of the heater on the ceiling.   (source)
    monotonous = lacking in variety
  • From far back in the flinty hills, the monotonous call of a hoot owl floated down in the silent night.   (source)
  • That a carnival is a real good idea. Something to break the monotony.   (source)
    monotony = lack of variety
  • He started talking in this very monotonous voice,   (source)
    monotonous = boring
  • Granpa said that when things had got monotonous for ol' Slick he had gone so far as to come and set in the edge of the cabin clearing, trying to get Granpa and the hounds to trail him.   (source)
    monotonous = boring (due to a lack of variety)
  • She began to play it with her fingers - a steady, monotonous thrumming that you didn't notice after a few minutes.   (source)
    monotonous = lacking in variety
  • Arnold picked up the phone and heard a steady monotonous hiss.†   (source)
    monotonous = lacking in variety and/or boring
  • ...monotonously falls the rain.   (source)
    monotonously = without variation
  • He got so frantic that he began to thrash from side to side like someone very sick with a high fever who can only monotonously repeat a motion or a word.   (source)
    monotonously = without variety
  • Akela never raised his head from his paws, but went on with the monotonous cry: "Look well!"   (source)
    monotonous = lacking in variety
  • Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang;   (source)
  • to while away the monotony of the summer at Fort Adams   (source)
    monotony = lack of variety
  • The song of the locomotive was monotonous as they traveled north, and the hours seemed like Mama's never-ending ball of thread unwinding in front of them.†   (source)
  • The architecture is too monotonous.†   (source)
  • If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy.†   (source)
  • I found a story about a boy and his dog lost in a cave and began reading while Miss Crocker's voice droned on monotonously.†   (source)
  • I get up to pee, go back to bed, lie twisting in the damp sheets, listening to the monotonous whirring of the fan.†   (source)
  • The final vestiges of panic from the night before had been drained by the monotony of breaking trail and he felt light-headed and irritable and his stomach gnawed at him.†   (source)
  • For me, the most intolerable aspects are the spiritual monotony and desiccation.†   (source)
  • The scenery and motion were so monotonous that Salva might have slept, except he was afraid that if he did, he might fall over the side.†   (source)
  • The same blinding greenness throughout, the same ridge, the same incline from ridge to water, the same break in the monotony: a scraggly tree here and there.†   (source)
  • It was not until their taxi had settled into a monotonous northbound hum on Rue de Clichy that Langdon felt they'd actually escaped.†   (source)
  • "Winky talked my father into it," said Crouch, still in the same monotonous voice.†   (source)
  • She can hear the trains stop, then resume their monotonous drone.†   (source)
  • Charles Wallace's strange, monotonous voice ground against her ears.†   (source)
  • But if I look past the buzzing machine monotonously unzipping the crusted soil, at the field itself and the fields around it, I remember that the seemingly stationary fields are always flowing toward one farmer and away from another.†   (source)
  • That night I made for the first time the kind of journey which later became the monotonous routine of my life: traveling through an unknown countryside from one unknown settlement to another.†   (source)
  • Matthew's voice was harsh and monotonous.†   (source)
  • I sat in the back of the hatchback on the drive home—and that is how I thought of it: home—and fell asleep to the highway's monotonous lullaby.†   (source)
  • You rotate the duties to help break up the monotony.†   (source)
  • I think they take the occasional potshot to relieve the monotony.†   (source)
  • Aspen and I were rarities, a Five and Six pulled out of our monotonous lives and placed in the palace.†   (source)
  • Having the occasional chat with me helped break the monotony of their days.†   (source)
  • I was confused by the pre-printed cards I kept finding all over the house: grids pencilled in with row after monotonous row of figures.†   (source)
  • Last week there was a brief interruption in our monotonous routine.†   (source)
  • The day was a monotonous trek of endless plodding.†   (source)
  • Just trying to break the monotony of all this waiting.†   (source)
  • This was flat country with only a few barely noticeable rolling hills to break the monotony.†   (source)
  • There had been no forests to fell, no hills to deal with, and no mountains to break the flat monotony of cornfields, bean-fields, cornfields, wheatfields, cornfields, rice paddies, and cornfields.†   (source)
  • The teacher is very monotonous and mundane.†   (source)
  • And though it was a welcome break from the monotony of lecture, this most recent activity had a sinister element too.†   (source)
  • They stood by lamp-posts, by the walls of buildings and in the road, heads raised, monotonously whimpering that they were hungry.†   (source)
  • He notes the handful of tunnel dwellers but keeps his thoughts to himself On Glendale Boulevard, the gray monotony of downtown disappears behind us and the San Gabriel Mountains climb into the clouds up ahead.†   (source)
  • Olmsted dismissed the inland sites out of hand as being flat and monotonous and too far from the lake.†   (source)
  • It was monotonous work.†   (source)
  • Maybe he's been in Africa so long he has forgotten that we Christians have our own system of marriage, and it is called Monotony.†   (source)
  • It was still quarter of ten before he was actually on the road, the windshield wipers clicking and the chains clinking with tuneless monotony on the Buick's big wheels.†   (source)
  • They obviously desire something mystical, something different to break the dreary monotony of everyday life.†   (source)
  • yield from this mill was monotonously consistent going all the way back to 1960.†   (source)
  • They wanted to witness the Red October's first operational cruise, and besides, sailors will do almost anything to break the monotony of their duties.†   (source)
  • There is a great deal of monotonous repetition.†   (source)
  • She was tired of struggling against the elements with nothing to break the monotony but watching Blanca grow.†   (source)
  • Most of the driving would be on the interstate highways, which makes driving monotonous.†   (source)
  • And while the urgencies of the pantry grew greater, Fernanda's indignation also grew, until her eventual protests, her infrequent outbursts came forth in an uncontained, unchained torrent that begin one morning like the monotonous drone of a guitar and as the day advanced rose in pitch, richer and more splendid.†   (source)
  • This was an ancient dirge all the more impressive for its resolute monotony.†   (source)
  • They complained that the work was boring and monotonous, but enjoyed earning money, getting away from school and parents, hanging out with friends at work, and goofing off as much as possible.†   (source)
  • There's thousands of people, Bessie now sang, ain't got no place to go, and for the first time Rufus began to hear, in the severely understated monotony of this blues, something which spoke to his troubled mind.†   (source)
  • The dark, rough rocks and the dusty plains covered in scrub flew by with monotonous uniformity.†   (source)
  • The liver's smooth and shiny outer surface is monotonous and unexciting, and apart from a median furrow dividing it into a large right lobe and a smaller left, it has no visible cleavage planes.†   (source)
  • Sometimes, to break the monotony, one would present a woven rabbit-fur hat or mittens to the other.†   (source)
  • There could be months ahead of cheese sandwiches and homemade coffee in a flask, with nothing to relieve the monotony.†   (source)
  • He hated the light bulb's monotonous surveillance; it disturbed his sleep and, more explicitly, endangered the success of a private project-escape.†   (source)
  • This wasn't rocket science, but it did involve a bit of skill, a good eye, and most of all an attention span that could focus on one, sometimes monotonous activity for an hour or two at a time.†   (source)
  • The sky became quite gray and, along with it, the whole countryside seemed to lose its color and assume the same monotonous tone.†   (source)
  • Walking along all day beside a cow herd was already proving monotonous— any steady work had always struck him as monotonous.†   (source)
  • First it was a hymn, all abrupt, odd, minor cadences and monotonous refrain.†   (source)
  • Sometimes the monotony of bingo and sing-alongs and ancient dusty people parked in the hallway in wheelchairs makes me long for death.†   (source)
  • He would whisper impromptu fairy tales about her, or gibberish, words he repeated monotonously, words soothing or comical, which turned into vague visions lulling her through the first dreams of the night.†   (source)
  • In a monotonous tone he warned the listeners that "this day might be your last," and the best insurance against dying a sinner was to "make yourself right with God" so that on the fateful day He would say, "Thou art my good and faithful servant with whom I am well pleased."†   (source)
  • The engines droned on monotonously like a fat, lazy fly.†   (source)
  • The monotony of the dirty whitewashed walls of the room was broken only by two small windows with iron bars on them, and by a single picture of a man, a Kurd with high cheekbones, wearing a fuzzy Russian-style hat.†   (source)
  • It was monotonous but satisfying work as he burnished each smooth, curved section to a natural gleam until the oil saturated its surface and it began to emit a phosphorescent glow.†   (source)
  • Nearby someone was cursing the gods in a heavy, monotonous voice.†   (source)
  • Being an A&O that February—a leap year, no less—was a strange combination of confusion and monotony.†   (source)
  • Jake had also explained that depositions drag on for days because the lawyers are being paid by the hour, or at least the ones who are asking the banal and monotonous questions.†   (source)
  • No part of the address was particularly distinguished or memorable and the delivery was monotonous throughout.†   (source)
  • They listened, but beyond the rustle of the leaves there came from the open down outside no sound except the monotonous tremolo of a grasshopper warbler, far off in the grass.†   (source)
  • He wanders through the stores of the U-shaped, outdoor mall admiring the piles of merchandise in the windows—sweaters, shirts, gloves, scarves, jewelry, sports equipment, shoes—the monotonous beauty of wealth.†   (source)
  • The same families married the same families until relationships were hopelessly entangled and the members of the community looked monotonously alike.†   (source)
  • One of Franklin's buddies, Tex Stanton, remembers boot camp as "weeks of monotonous training, learning how to march, how to follow orders, how to shoot a rifle, how to be a real Marine."†   (source)
  • The Nadia, where foreign businessmen often ate seven evenings a week while they were in Islamabad, offered theme nights to break up the monotony.†   (source)
  • The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone.†   (source)
  • They sang the song of summer's ending, a sad, monotonous song.†   (source)
  • THE next morning it rained and I reached the district before the others arrived and stood looking through the window of my office, past the jutting wall of a building, and on beyond the monotonous pattern of its bricks and mortar I saw a row of trees rising tall and graceful in the rain.†   (source)
  • Some might have found the continuous spread of sun-ripened grain waving, acre after acre, monotonous.†   (source)
  • Workers toiled day and night in behemoth drones that swallowed their souls and their children; not necessarily like Arturo, but in the way they absorbed each generation without offering any hope from their monotonous cycle of birth, grueling labor and then death.†   (source)
  • Like a slot machine, fed habitually, mindlessly, monotonously, so that you're almost shocked when the jackpot falls in your lap.†   (source)
  • The only difference is that the officers don't wear their ranks on their uniforms: they write them after their names and announce them in the degree to which their speech is pompous, mellifluous, and monotonous.†   (source)
  • His voice was precise and monotonous; it connoted safety.†   (source)
  • Not until I had reached the bank and was making my homeward way along the top of it did the monotonous Sunday precepts join up with reality.†   (source)
  • Speak quietly, fool," Dendybar the Mottled, a frail-looking man tucked defensively within the alleyway's shadows demanded in the same monotonous voice that he always used.†   (source)
  • Jenkins started his monotonous chant again.†   (source)
  • Waves approached and receded as monotonously as connecting rods pumping back and forth in an engine.†   (source)
  • The moonlight was constantly intercepted by the drifting, low-flying clouds and he kept straining his eyes, scanning the field of tall grass, looking for a break in the monotonous pattern, for bent reeds moving towards the base of the hill, towards him.†   (source)
  • His visits are uplifting to Booth and Herold, a welcome break from the monotony of sitting still for hours and hours out in the open.†   (source)
  • In a word, everyone had taken it upon himself to expose the ignorance of those who were junior to him, and the quarrels proceeded as in some monotonous soap opera.†   (source)
  • Holding it to my ear, a monotonous beeping immediately hit my eardrums.†   (source)
  • Not heavy now but monotonous, dripping onto us, splashing on the stones.†   (source)
  • As we listened to the testimony of the OG, I placed my right hand on Pig's shoulder and squeezed it, as we endured the flat, monotonous testimony, which damaged Pig grievously with its assuredness and its utter simplicity.†   (source)
  • On either side, bare fields; in the distance, dark monotonous hills were mingling with the gathering darkness.†   (source)
  • When the ice melted, sandy riverbeds were deposited on the land below, where they now provide almost the sole visual relief in the bleak monotony of the tundra plains.†   (source)
  • He walked on out of the woodlot, and his head hung down so that his chin rested on his chest, and the rise and fall of his hip when his wooden leg struck the ground was monotonous.†   (source)
  • The novelty will do much to relieve the monotony.†   (source)
  • This "imaginary evil"—again to quote Simone Weil—"is romantic and varied, while real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring."†   (source)
  • The night was hot and there was a low, monotonous whistling of some bird out in the bushes grown up around the dilapidated barn, east of the house and trailer.†   (source)
  • Half-way through the afternoon, as they were crossing a monotonous belt of scrub, there came a diversion: as welcome as it was unexpected.†   (source)
  • Through the open classroom windows came the distant droning of the town, as monotonous as a beehive, and the shrieks of children playing in the yard.†   (source)
  • "God damm it," the old man said in a slow monotonous certain tone as if he were saying it to the beating of his heart.†   (source)
  • She looks like funny furniture-an unornamented stair post in one of these little houses, with her small monotonous round stupid head-or sometimes like a woodcut of a Bavarian witch, forefinger pointing, with scratches in the air all around her.†   (source)
  • "Speaking of monotony..." he continued smoothly.†   (source)
  • Someone was beating a drum; the monotonous tom-tom noise sounded the end of the day.†   (source)
  • The wind cried and whisked in the brush, and the family went on monotonously, hour after hour.   (source)
    monotonously = boringly (without variety)
  • It was as though, so long as the deceit ran along quiet and monotonous, all of us let ourselves be deceived,   (source)
    monotonous = dull (lacking variety)
  • He said woodenly, "If I was alone I could live so easy." His voice was monotonous, had no emphasis. "I could get a job an' not have no mess."   (source)
    monotonous = lacking in variety of tone and rhythm
  • Nothing happens—only the monotonous cry: "Mind—wire,"—our knees bend—we are again half asleep.   (source)
    monotonous = without variation
  • All one hears is the drummers practising; they have installed themselves somewhere and practise brokenly, dully, monotonously.   (source)
  • ...monotonously come the calls,   (source)
  • Monotonously the lorries sway,   (source)
  • So he continued monotonously to chew tobacco and to increase the length of his amber beard.   (source)
    monotonously = with a lack of variety
  • "He left us, he left us!" in a steady, monotonous wail, and there was nothing for Tim to do but climb out of the back door, into the slashing rain, and shut the door for her.†   (source)
    monotonous = lacking in variety and/or boring
  • He could throw a football fifty yards, sink a ten-foot hook shot with monotonous regularity, and throw one of the finest curveballs I had ever seen.†   (source)
  • He would most likely be grateful for a break in the monotony.†   (source)
  • Carrie's steady, monotonous weeping went on and on.†   (source)
  • A deadly struggle for my soul would have broken the monotony nicely.†   (source)
  • Truthfully, I was looking forward to getting back to the normal monotony of shuffling papers.†   (source)
  • I want anything that breaks the monotony, subverts the perceived respectable order of things.†   (source)
  • For a long time there was no sound except his monotonous lapping and slurping.†   (source)
  • The demolition work was very monotonous.†   (source)
  • He kept humming a soft, monotonous little tune.†   (source)
  • Most offworiders find the gravity a pain and the scenery monotonous.†   (source)
  • Suddenly I grew conscious of a break in that monotonous tone and I looked up.†   (source)
  • I could hear their blurred voices droning monotonously through the window.†   (source)
  • Things settled back into their accustomed, monotonous order.†   (source)
  • The dealers in gold and currency were calling out monotonously, 'Gold, buy gold.†   (source)
  • Many hours spent blowing in and out monotonously on a toy harmonica, in and out, in and out.†   (source)
  • At the beginning of the year an entirely unexpected event disturbed the monotony of my days.†   (source)
  • But December came and went, a monotony of gray, of muted Christmas carols coming from downstairs.†   (source)
  • Maybe because there are fewer distracting features to break up the wide monotony of hill and plane.†   (source)
  • The top of the hill was almost treeless, only solitary evergreens to break the gray monotony.†   (source)
  • The heart machine beeped steadily, soothing in its monotony.†   (source)
  • It appeared one afternoon, a mere sliver of black that broke the monotony of the gray, flat horizon.†   (source)
  • Joe listened to the monotonous thump of the windshield wipers.†   (source)
  • But monotony doesn't make for painlessness.†   (source)
  • As he ran, he listened to the monotonous pattern of his breathing and to his light, quick footsteps.†   (source)
  • Mile after mile after mile after mile, and everything became graver and more monotonous.†   (source)
  • With all of this combined, the monotony hit lethal levels.†   (source)
  • The highs and lows, the rush, the monotony.†   (source)
  • Its monotony bred happiness, not boredom.†   (source)
  • If that was what the M. I. did to break the monotony, then that was what I did.†   (source)
  • When that grew monotonous he wrote, 'Irving Washington.'†   (source)
  • The desert was, if anything, more monotonous and dead than before.†   (source)
  • Fascinating — but, after a time, monotonous.†   (source)
  • I heard a noise, faint, monotonous, white.†   (source)
  • Long, monotonous days punctuated by moments of terror.†   (source)
  • Like Washington Irving, he could be reversed with good effect whenever he grew monotonous.†   (source)
  • Squinting, Eragon swept his gaze back and forth, but the fog seemed as monotonous as ever.†   (source)
  • Colin often thought about this in relationship to the monotony of dumping: we have thirty-two teeth.†   (source)
  • Major Major went back to Washington Irving when John Milton grew monotonous.†   (source)
  • The work was monotonous, and as a result, Eragon soon lost track of the time.†   (source)
  • To break the monotony he invented games.†   (source)
  • A tune of utter monotony filled the room with agonizing, unforgettable banality.†   (source)
  • But she kept talking in the candlelight, in this flat monotonous voice now, as in a trance.†   (source)
  • The ceaseless, monotonous noise made her feel sick and giddy.†   (source)
  • But these monotonous, endless repetitions made his head go around.†   (source)
  • He remembered finding one of Joan's bras under a sofa cushion earlier in the day, and she had been gone a full three months, showed you what kind of a job the cleaning service did; he remembered hearing New York traffic, and, faintly, the monotonous tolling of a church bell calling the faithful to mass.†   (source)
  • but after a while these could get monotonous, so one last fighting chance had to be added in, or else an element of surprise.†   (source)
  • It's a view he does not admire — it is so relentlessly horizontal — but visual monotony can sometimes be conducive to thought.†   (source)
  • Their father had let the leaves smolder all that afternoon, drinking beer on the porch and dropping the empty Black Label cans into his wife's plastic floorbucket while his two older sons flanked him and little Jacky sat on the steps at his feet, playing with his Bolo Bouncer and singing monotonously over and over: "Your cheating heart ...will make you weep ...your cheating heart ...is gonna tell on you.†   (source)
  • There is talk of a new Sewing Machine for use in the home, which would do exceedingly well if it might be cheaply produced; for every woman would wish to own such an item, which would save many hours of monotonous toil and unceasing drudgery, and would also be of great assistance to the poor seamstresses.†   (source)
  • The work was monotonous but pleasant.†   (source)
  • Beautiful effects were scarcely to be expected in buildings so enormous and so cheaply constructed; the level of monotony of ground surfaces in Chicago made effective grouping practically impossible; the time for preparation and construction was too short: these and other criticisms indicated a general feeling of disparagement.†   (source)
  • This morning I was wondering whether you ever felt like a cow, having to chew my stale news over and over again until you're so fed up with the monotonous fare that you yawn and secretly wish Anne would dig up something new.†   (source)
  • For the rest of that day and into the night, we went up and down, up and down, up and down, until terror became monotonous and was replaced by numbness and a complete giving-up.†   (source)
  • He listened to the monotonous snarl of the riding lawnmower, saw her shadow, and, as so often happened when he thought of how weird Annie was getting, his mind recalled the image of the axe rising, then falling; the image of her horrid impassive deadly face splattered with his blood.†   (source)
  • How could he exist in this clean, dry, monotonous, ordinary room, gobbling caramel soycorn and zucchini cheese puffs and addling his brain on spirituous liquors and brooding on the total fiasco that was his personal life, while the entire human race was kakking out?†   (source)
  • We prayed rosary after rosary, until the monotonous sound of prayers blended into the blur of flickering altar candles.†   (source)
  • The horror of it should have been monotonous, but it was not; they had gotten her up here, up here in front of the whole school, and had repeated the shower-room scene ....only the voice had said (my god that's blood) something too awful to be contemplated.†   (source)
  • Of all the dreary monotonous sermons!†   (source)
  • But he was wrong; the only teacher present when they entered was Professor Binns, floating an inch or so above his chair as usual and preparing to continue his monotonous drone on giant wars.†   (source)
  • Every evening since she had come here she had sat waiting with impatience for her uncle's monotonous voice to cease.†   (source)
  • The monotony was killing me.†   (source)
  • School work grew monotonous beside it.†   (source)
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