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

The third day, the patient was packed twice, and had four baths, and the bowels being costive, an injection of tepid water in the evening.

From Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms by Munde, Charles

If the Patient is costive, he should receive Glysters of warm Water, in which some Bran has been boiled, with the Addition of a little common Soap or Butter.

From Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health by Tissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David)