shaggy-dog story

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.

This particular shaggy-dog story gets very shaggy, and at times it’s not clear whether Buckley himself knows where he wants the narrative to go.

From Washington Post • Sep. 4, 2022

“Licorice Pizza”: Paul Thomas Anderson’s shaggy-dog story of self-discovery in ’70s San Fernando Valley feels to me like a loose, easy-breathing culmination for Anderson, a virtuoso filmmaker here at his most tender and organic.

From Seattle Times • Dec. 8, 2021

I wouldn’t have dared say that out loud, but even then, I think, I somehow sensed that this was a climax that wouldn’t provide much resolution, a space-age shaggy-dog story.

From The New Yorker • Jul. 18, 2019

The moth joke resembles a shaggy-dog story structurally, but its wrenching punch line reveals Macdonald’s mastery of craft.

From New York Times • Aug. 30, 2018

You heard that big, long shaggy-dog story about exactly what happened and where everybody was supposed to have been at the time.

From Murder in the Gunroom by Piper, H. Beam