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Definitions

essay

[es-ay, es-ay, e-say, e-say] / ˈɛs eɪ, ˈɛs eɪ, ɛˈseɪ, ɛˈseɪ /




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.

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So it wasn’t surprising that his damage control came quickly and at length in a Twitter essay the following morning.

From Slate ● Nov. 7, 2026

“I’m concerned about some of the reactions to my recent essay on model welfare,” he wrote.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2026

It comes after three students were caught wearing or possessing smart glasses during institution-administered essay exams at universities in Seoul.

From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2026

In a Foreign Policy essay last week, former Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid defines the central problem in Europe, plausibly but rather too vaguely, as “intergenerational hopelessness” and a downward spiral of economic expectation.

From Salon ● Oct. 26, 2026

I tried to tell the whole thing in my college essay.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

The art was selected as counterpoint to the essays, another means to draw the reader into reflection and contemplation.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2026

In November, Feygin plans to host an event at the Wende Museum in Culver City, inviting other first-generation Eastern Europeans to share essays and poetry about their connections to bathing culture.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026

In his early years as an English teacher, his seniors’ college essays revealed their biggest hurdles were financial.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026

Berry’s later essays tend more toward polemics than painterly scenes, though this collection offers occasional brushstrokes of the signature imagery that shaped his poems and novels.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026

The rest of us spent the afternoon writing essays about tolerance and kindness.

From "Wintergirls" by Laurie Halse Anderson

In the second cast, Christine Shevchenko fell far short of Ms. Teuscher’s finesse, but she essayed the opening “Preghiera” movement with more of its requisite lilt and shimmer than Ms. Teuscher did.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 18, 2026

That section essayed — at the very least — to disqualify from federal office the Civil War rebels and, prospectively, anyone who tried to do the same thing again.

From Slate ● Sep. 19, 2023

Before the Schubert, Vogt and the Tetzlaffs had essayed the three Brahms trios, as well as two by Dvorak; with Christian alone, there were accounts of sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms.

From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2023

Meanwhile, dos Santos — with an army of around 100,000 troops, many with years of jungle combat experience — essayed a role as a regional power broker, starting with neighboring countries.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 8, 2022

Searching for the Man who lives in him was perhaps what he really meant, because certainly no beast has essayed the boundless, infinitely inventive art of human hatred.

From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy

Two other Scandinavian greats, Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann, couldn’t resist essaying a part that passionately called out to them.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2025

Here, Sinatra is clearly stretching the limits of what was possible for a popular singer—one can’t imagine any of his predecessors or contemporaries essaying a work as long and complex as this.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2025

The actress was a member of the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic from 1972-75, essaying Lady Macbeth in 1972.

From Salon ● Sep. 10, 2020

Like all reflective objects though, the act of essaying has a twoness about it.

From Washington Post ● May 11, 2020

Mrs Morgan herself sits beside the coffin, at intervals giving way to wildest grief; a cluster of women around vainly essaying to comfort her.

From Gwen Wynn A Romance of the Wye by Mayne Reid


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