pleasantries

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.

Twenty years ago, founders proudly eschewed fashion and decorum, too busy writing code and devising a new world order to bother with pleasantries, like basic manners and French cuffs.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 18, 2026

He could order in French and exchange pleasantries with an elderly French waiter who seemed to live there.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026

Groups of passersby stopped outside the city’s La Carlota air base—one of the sites targeted in Saturday’s military incursion —to take photos, exchanging pleasantries as they snapped photos of the bombed site.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 5, 2026

They exchanged pleasantries with Mrs. Sutherland, she departed, and the men got straight down to business.

From Slate • Dec. 1, 2025

I think of the parks and the restaurants, of the pleasantries I'll never use on the friends I am failing to make.

From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris