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

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

His love of, and need to, work quickly became the leitmotif of the event.

From Los Angeles Times • May 19, 2023

The King’s leitmotif, for example, might be 4 quarter notes played on a trumpet sound on a keyboard, or using an interval of a 5th on any instrument to sound regal and stately.

From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin