costive

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Movies coiled up in other movies have a habit of becoming either costive or cute, but somehow Falardeau avoids the traps.

From The New Yorker • May 5, 2017

His stories are carried along, too, by an exceptionally easygoing and seductive narrative voice, what the costive Henry James described as his acolyte’s enviable “flow.”

From Washington Post • Jun. 2, 2016

Yet at the same time there was something costive about Johns, in sharp contrast to the effusive generosity of Robert Rauschenberg's vision.

From Time Magazine Archive

If the one had been poor, and the other costive, I would never have made remarks which could never do good, while they only gave pain.

From Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume 6 by Lockhart, J. G. (John Gibson)

His rhymes are of the costive kind, And barren as each valley In deserts which he left behind Has been the Muse of Gally.

From The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry by Coleridge, Ernest Hartley