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.

Scholars have long dismissed the hack analysis that George W. Bush was driven by Oedipal issues or Halliburton.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 6, 2026

Then again, if there is a point to “Beau Is Afraid,” I suppose it’s that parent-child relationships, particularly mother-son relationships, are so elemental, so Oedipal, that there can be no rational understanding thereof.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 19, 2023

In Ari Aster’s new film “ Beau is Afraid,” Joaquin Phoenix plays an anxious man in a rotten world who goes on a wildly weird journey, both Homeric and Oedipal, to his mother’s home.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 19, 2023

Part of what will make the fast-approaching Oedipal primary season so damned entertaining is the relative humorlessness of people like Mr. DeSantis and Mrs. Haley.

From Washington Times • Feb. 20, 2023

Instead, I thought of Edward Albee, for the merciless wit, and Sophocles, for the Oedipal anxiety.

From New York Times • Sep. 30, 2022