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.

Scorsese’s faith, and his battles with it, provide something of a leitmotif of the series — is he a saint or a sinner?

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 16, 2025

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

Through these depictions, the show tries to tell the histories of the nomadic, tribal and agrarian communities for whom resilient survival was the leitmotif and cloth a way of narrating their marginalised experiences.

From BBC • Mar. 29, 2025

But the truest leitmotif of my adventure was cheese.

From Salon • Oct. 9, 2023

At its simplest, leitmotif is a straightforward association of a nugget of tune with a character.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall