How to Use preternatural in a Sentence

preternatural

adjective
  • There was a preternatural quiet in the house.
  • She has a preternatural ability to charm people.
  • With a preternatural sense of pay dirt, Mr. Trump has stuck with the wall ever since.
    — Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 23 Jan. 2019
  • James has a preternatural ability to see the game, to think two moves ahead.
    — Christopher L. Gasper, BostonGlobe.com, 16 May 2018
  • Or is this a petulant man who has a preternatural gift for trolling?
    — Jennifer Szalai, New York Times, 7 Oct. 2019
  • But the crispy gai tod, or Thai fried chicken, with its preternatural crunch pushes this place over the top.
    — Mackensy Lunsford, The Tennessean, 14 Nov. 2024
  • The ladies are drawn to his Colombian good looks and preternatural tan, his sense of humor, talent, and youth.
    — Whitney Robinson, Town & Country, 17 Aug. 2017
  • And there are the games with color, the white fabrics that are never white, yet seem to blaze with the preternatural whiteness of sheets bleached and dried in the southern sun.
    — Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 15 June 2022
  • But his trademark trait — the one that observers say gives him a small chance of success — is his preternatural speed.
    — Alexander Smith, NBC News, 19 Jan. 2024
  • Four lifelong friends find a preternatural pair of jeans that appear to fit them all in spite of their varying body types.
    — Tara Paniogue, latimes.com, 25 May 2018
  • There was a moment when Duplantis’s right arm was on the wrong side of the bar while the rest of him was over, and some preternatural sense—the lightest part of him—told him to move it.
    — Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2024
  • As with the others, Alcaraz’s preternatural gifts and skills played the biggest role in his good fortune.
    — Matthew Futterman, New York Times, 28 May 2023
  • The star has gone back and forth between red and blonde hair over the years, but her strands have always retained their preternatural polish.
    — Teryn Payne, Teen Vogue, 14 Jan. 2018
  • The next step is to up the difficulty of the test and see at what level this preternatural ability to see the target fails.
    — Veronique Greenwood, Discover Magazine, 10 May 2011
  • Growing up at the movies gave David Picker a preternatural sense for what stars and stories people would like to see on screen.
    — Patrick McGroarty, WSJ, 26 Apr. 2019
  • At the heart of the Chiron’s ease of use is preternatural steering feedback that recalls that of the racetrack-ready Porsche GT3.
    — Marco Della Cava, USA TODAY, 23 June 2017
  • Coleman, who held the same post for the Hillary Clinton campaign, brings an almost preternatural balance to the role.
    — Ellen McGirt, Fortune, 26 June 2017
  • Altuve singled in the fifth and then showed off his preternatural bat-to-ball skills in the seventh, slashing at the pitch above his eyes and smiling wide at first base.
    — Arkansas Online, 31 Oct. 2022
  • And then there is Kyle Schwarber, twenty-four, a four-by-four truck sprung to life as a preternatural hitter of baseballs.
    — David Axelrod, The New Yorker, 24 Mar. 2017
  • Yet the most curious thing, the trait that sticks with Winters today, was Junis’s preternatural poise on the floor.
    — Rustin Dodd, kansascity, 22 Sep. 2017
  • Roydon Tse, the composer of the opera, said he was inspired by Doi’s preternatural poise.
    — Bo Emerson, ajc, 1 Aug. 2022
  • Yet, through it all, the Kushner-Trumps have a preternatural skill with optics.
    — Emily Jane Fox, The Hive, 20 July 2017
  • Yet, through it all, the Kushner-Trumps have a preternatural skill with optics.
    — Emily Jane Fox, vanityfair.com, 20 July 2017
  • Her confidence and touch at the net were preternatural.
    — Gerald Marzorati, The New Yorker, 4 June 2022
  • Streisand and Michele were swathed in preternatural glamour.
    — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 4 Apr. 2024
  • To watch any of the music videos Priya Ragu has released over the past year is to witness a preternatural pop talent arrive fully formed.
    — Liam Hess, Vogue, 25 Oct. 2021
  • His music was all bravado and swagger, topped off by a preternatural charm that could draw in even the most resistant.
    — Briana Younger, The New Yorker, 20 Feb. 2020
  • Instead, we are stirred and amused by a preternatural sight: men as little machines.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 14 July 2023
  • Daniels and his preternatural abilities have taken it from there.
    — David Aldridge, The Athletic, 24 Jan. 2025
  • The main character, Hiram, seemed like a Coates stand-in, a man who has a preternatural capacity to remember and becomes the keeper of his people’s stories.
    — Parul Sehgal, The New Yorker, 14 Oct. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'preternatural.' 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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