as in flatteringly
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Recent Examples of unctuously
In my experience, moisturizers for dry skin tend to be unctuously thick, which can trigger breakouts, while those made for oily skin are often too light to make a difference.
—
Jacqueline Kilikita, Refinery29, 22 Jan. 2026
Jacqueline Kilikita, Refinery29, 22 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unctuously
Adverb
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Modestly cut and flatteringly designed, this short set is elegant enough to wear from day to night.—
Alexandra Emanuelli,
Southern Living,
4 Mar. 2026
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The high elastic waistband flatteringly cinches without pinching, according to one shopper, and the baggy wide-leg design gives your legs room to move through long airport lines and eight-hour workdays.—
Chaise Sanders,
Travel + Leisure,
22 Oct. 2025
Adverb
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If a borrower has fallen significantly behind, which typically happens at 90 to 180 days past due, the chances of recovering the full balance drop sharply.—
Angelica Leicht,
CBS News,
26 Mar. 2026
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Bloomberg reported that memory chip stocks fell sharply after Google highlighted a new algorithm, TurboQuant, that can reduce the memory needed to run large AI models by up to sixfold.—
Sharon Goldman,
Fortune,
26 Mar. 2026
Adverb
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While noirs, of course, critique the crumbling American Dream, Rivera slyly comments on politics.—
Sammy Loren,
Los Angeles Times,
18 Mar. 2026
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And Reilly is aces at playing aw-shucks-who-me innocence while Gary enjoys the best of both worlds, as his friend Eric slyly points out during a dinner party.—
Sheri Linden,
HollywoodReporter,
16 Mar. 2026
Adverb
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The show, which followed a crooked New Mexican lawyer, played by Bob Odenkirk, was an archly funny drama, shot partly in gritty black-and-white.—
Rachel Syme,
New Yorker,
29 Sep. 2025
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Much as Wes Anderson and Yorgos Lanthimos have plumbed Dafoe’s deliciously wicked sense of humor in pieces that straddle the line between the real and the archly stylized, Solnicki understands that a strong Dafoe performance must always teeter between the two.—
Manuel Betancourt,
Variety,
28 Sep. 2025
Adverb
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The Chinese delayed their retaliation for a while and then, very cunningly, took disproportionate revenge on Canada, recognizing Canada as the weaker link, who got less from the tariffs and were more exposed.—
David Frum,
The Atlantic,
4 Feb. 2026
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Instead of kings and queens cunningly maneuvering their armies against their enemies, there’s only an ox of a man and a bald little boy, neither of whom exhibits a clearly superior intellect.—
Ben Travers,
IndieWire,
13 Jan. 2026
Adverb
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The threats to our waters are insidiously obscured from sight.—
Theodore J. Karamanski,
Chicago Tribune,
6 Feb. 2026
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The experiment is that AI is being made available nationally and globally, which is either overtly or insidiously acting to provide mental health guidance of one kind or another.—
Lance Eliot,
Forbes.com,
30 Jan. 2026
Adverb
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Some players struggled against the size of bigger and stronger players, while others craftily created space with deft footwork and manipulation.—
Devin Robertson,
MSNBC Newsweek,
27 Aug. 2025
Adverb
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Unlike Monday's burial for Princess Irene, which follows a Saturday prayer service in Madrid and a funeral Monday at Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, the Tatoi interment for Sofia's mother, Queen Federica of Greece, was not official, and took place almost furtively.—
Diego Parrado,
Vanity Fair,
18 Jan. 2026
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This has become the central theme of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City—probably the most chaotic show in its franchise—whose characters are always trying to root out which of their frenemies is furtively digging up dirt and spreading rumors about their legal or financial woes.—
Judy Berman,
Time,
5 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Unctuously.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unctuously. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.
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