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

I was of a costive, dyspeptic habit, which has been entirely removed.

From Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages Including a System of Vegetable Cookery by Alcott, William A. (William Andrus)

In cases of this kind, the bowels are generally costive, and the spirits of the patient are very apt to be affected by changes in the weather, particularly by a fall of the barometer.

From Popular Lectures on Zoonomia Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease by Garnett, Thomas