How to Use leaden in a Sentence

leaden

adjective
  • Leaden clouds covered the sky, and a brisk wind whipped through the air.
    Jon Wertheim, SI.com, 23 June 2017
  • The day after the spring equinox looked dreary and leaden.
    Sylvia Poggioli, The New York Review of Books, 29 Mar. 2020
  • My chest tightened, and my arms and legs again felt leaden.
    Donald Antrim, The New Yorker, 9 Aug. 2021
  • But many of us may wish for our 70-degree days without the leaden skies above.
    Martin Weil, Washington Post, 15 May 2022
  • Ever had to trudge through a thick and leaden version of biscuits and gravy?
    Adam Lukach, chicagotribune.com, 3 Sep. 2019
  • But then there are leaden images of black birds, living and dead.
    New York Times, 5 Nov. 2021
  • Though the batter is made with 100 percent whole wheat flour, the pancakes aren’t tough or leaden.
    Jessica Battilana, SFChronicle.com, 29 Apr. 2020
  • The idea of cooking an actual meal was enough to make my limbs go leaden.
    Kaci Neves, Bon Appétit, 7 June 2021
  • His character, Martin, has the leaden tread of a man stuck in a midlife crisis.
    E. Alex Jung, Vulture, 20 Apr. 2021
  • In place of leaden despair, there is something lighter.
    BostonGlobe.com, 7 Nov. 2019
  • Behind them, echoing the shape of the ladder, there is the steeple of an old white church pointing up toward a leaden sky.
    Charles Bethea, The New Yorker, 8 Dec. 2019
  • But at home, leaden legs turned his gait into a shuffle.
    Jen Murphy, WSJ, 15 Dec. 2018
  • All day, the New Orleans heat made her leaden and itchy, but now that the sunlight has drained from the sky and the moisture has been wicked from the air, the actress is ready and alert.
    E. Alex Jung, Vulture, 7 July 2021
  • Crab Rangoon, at its worst leaden and porous, is light and crackly here.
    Kara Baskin, BostonGlobe.com, 15 May 2018
  • Perhaps that accounts for why a work that can be so dazzling onstage is so leaden transferred to the screen.
    Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 27 June 2019
  • Odor threw to first base, a second ahead of the leaden-footed Pujols, and the Rangers had an inning-ending double play.
    Pedro Moura, latimes.com, 2 Sep. 2017
  • Time was leaden, then, swimming as if through oil, distorted and heavy.
    Sara B. Franklin, Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020
  • No leaden diagnoses of the human predicament belch on the smoky skyline.
    New York Times, 14 Feb. 2022
  • Its banks, a big weight in stockmarket indices, look leaden.
    The Economist, 9 June 2018
  • What saves the gimmick from tipping over into leaden pretension is a sense of play.
    Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Oct. 2022
  • In the sun, the river, which had seemed leaden the day before, sparkled with personality like a living thing.
    Longreads, 18 Sep. 2019
  • But the plot veered away from the novel in significant ways, the acting was leaden, and the film was critically panned.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 14 Apr. 2020
  • Hundreds of women who’d been born in the projects and poisoned with lead their whole lives passed metals in utero to their children, whose first breaths took in clouds of white leaden dust.
    Vann R. Newkirk Ii, The Atlantic, 21 May 2017
  • As for Tepper, his own audition for the leaden police officer Samuels still hung in the air.
    Bridget Arsenault, Forbes, 10 July 2022
  • In the season premiere, Carrie is trying to recover from a breakup with her boyfriend, played by leaden Chris Noth.
    Amanda Arnold, The Cut, 5 June 2018
  • Under leaden skies that threatened rain, Young strolled down Main Street, then climbed a couple of steps onto a hotel porch.
    BostonGlobe.com, 16 July 2021
  • There's a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, the leaden affair will lighten up with some lighthearted bloodshed, but no.
    Katie Walsh, chicagotribune.com, 19 Sep. 2019
  • There’s a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, the leaden affair will lighten up with some lighthearted bloodshed, but no.
    Katie Walsh, Twin Cities, 21 Sep. 2019
  • But finally the plotting is so leaden and the fire fights so pro forma that not even the sight of the three Shafts in action can keep this film from sinking under its own weight.
    Kenneth Turan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 June 2019
  • But the buoyancy of gratitude couldn't compete with the leaden frustrations of a Quick Sinker.
    Andrew Reiner, Washington Post, 4 Feb. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'leaden.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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