mordancy

• “The most theatrical thing about "Tynan" is the gem-cut sentences within which Tynan performed; they are crafty, bravura events, detonations of deadly wit and mordancy.”

  The Washington Post: 'Tynan': A show to please the critic

• “Even the story "People Like That Are the Only People Here" (collected in Birds of America), which is ritually cited as Moore's finest work, seems to me mostly an exercise in sentimentality, its supposed mordancy of tone notwithstanding, invoking that most maudlin of narrative devices, a child in distress, without redeeming it.”

  A Sad Decline

• “In that context, his remarks about Mays were tinged with the mordancy of a man whose life, health, and dreams had all been thrown into doubt.”

  Simon & Schuster: WILLIE MAYS

• “The matter-of-fact mordancy of Emily Dickinson, the supreme poet of grief, may provide more balm to the mourner than the glad tidings of those who talk about how death can enrich us.”

  Archive 2010-01-01

• “Spark is amusing on this score, combining a mordancy about contemporary journalism with a sarcasm about the intellectual level of the school's privileged students.”

  The Prime of Ms. Muriel Spark

• “Speaking at Emory University, where he received a global innovation award--which could explain the billionaire's mordancy--Turner joked that when he "lost his job," nobody would hire him because of his age so he founded a business he knew little about--the mahogany-paneled restaurant chain Ted's Montana Grill, whose specialty is bison burgers.”

  Forbes: Tuner Blasts Parsons' Time Warner

• “His subsequent interest in Shintoism and Buddhism lacks the mordancy and introspection (the "agenbite of inwit," as Joyce liked to put it) of his earlier hermeneutic investigations.”

  The Immortal

• “He is much less funny than any of them, and his characteristic humor is an elegant wit rather than the deadpan mordancy of Beckett or the wild clowning of Ionesco.”

  These Illusions Are Real

• “Ambassador with a mordancy sheathed in good-humour, casting on each of us a glance the gentleness and discretion of which appeared to be tempering while in reality they deftly intensified its malice.”

  Within a Budding Grove

• “He made all these intellectual concepts plastic in a music of a brilliance and a sprightliness and mordancy that not overmany classic symphonies can rival.”

  Musical Portraits Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers

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