leitmotif
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.
The Argentine author, whose writing habitually draws on the uncanny, here delivers a blend of superstition, dread and a leitmotif of mental instability in a register of acute psychological realism.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 9, 2025
Its leitmotif is push and pull: unsettling, bruising, often brutal, yet ultimately life-affirming.
From BBC • Sep. 4, 2025
It was a leitmotif in everything that was being said for decades,” Traube said, adding that he is upset both by the resurgence of antisemitism and the lack of a “massive popular reaction” against it.
From Seattle Times • Nov. 9, 2023
A leitmotif in "Strange New Worlds" relates to Pike foreknowledge that a life-changing accident lurks in his future.
From Salon • Aug. 18, 2023
The goal of a leitmotif is to help the listener identify the main characters and give each a very short musical pattern, so that every time their name is mentioned, someone plays that pattern.
From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin
Vocabulary lists containing leitmotif
Opera Vocabulary
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Words Derived from German
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