How to Use world-building in a Sentence

world-building

noun
  • That sort of world-building for your pet won’t come cheap.
    — Boone Ashworth, WIRED, 15 Oct. 2024
  • If the first film felt like endless world-building and set-up, have no fear.
    — Scott Phillips, Forbes, 4 Jan. 2025
  • That kind of world-building appealed to him more than the story of this kid who becomes a god.
    — WIRED, 19 Sep. 2023
  • That is the beauty of Barbie Land logic and world-building.
    — André-Naquian Wheeler, Vogue, 20 July 2023
  • Walker’s world-building around the opaque adult Jane, though, is less assured.
    — Leah Greenblatt, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2025
  • Each outfit in this sense serves as a memory and a call toward the work of world-building.
    — Najha Zigbi-Johnson, Essence, 30 Apr. 2025
  • People certainly aren’t looking for the next Game of Thrones or the next world-building show.
    — Lacey Rose, The Hollywood Reporter, 30 Nov. 2023
  • In this deep dive into world-building, we’re thrust 300 years into the future.
    — Randy Myers, The Mercury News, 25 Jan. 2024
  • To date, the SSU has failed to generate the success or world-building Sony hoped for and intended.
    — Mark Hughes, Forbes, 12 Dec. 2024
  • Elsewhere in the interview, Elliott discussed some of the plans for world-building in this next film.
    — Charlotte Phillipp, Peoplemag, 22 Apr. 2024
  • Billion-dollar world-building aside, The Rings of Power plods.
    — TIME, 7 Feb. 2024
  • This Easter egg is Lynchian world-building at its best.
    — Max Evry, WIRED, 10 Jan. 2024
  • Burton, long revered for his quirky world-building genius, needs to get his macabre back, bigtime.
    — Karen D'souza, The Mercury News, 25 Sep. 2024
  • The result of their joint artistic labor amounts to idiosyncratic world-building with a retro sheen.
    — Carlos Aguilar, Variety, 31 Jan. 2025
  • The elaborate world-building and precinct plot yielded a timeless film that would be studied and enjoyed for decades to come.
    — Jordan Runtagh, Peoplemag, 31 Mar. 2024
  • Its cross-cultural world-building—etched, with shabbily retro flair, in boxy frames of grainy 16-mm.
    — Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 10 Feb. 2025
  • Keith Herron’s world-building with his brand Advisry has been in the making since his teen years.
    — Kerane Marcellus, Essence, 8 Sep. 2024
  • Like all world-building for the big screen, recreating the Bridgerton universe based on Julia Quinn’s novels is no small feat.
    — Rachel Silva, ELLE Decor, 8 Sep. 2023
  • The visuals the group puts out—the single shot, world-building videos—are clearly a central part of their identity, but the music stands on its own as well.
    — Liam Hess, Vogue, 23 Oct. 2023
  • Again, in between the firefights, there is also a lot of immersive world-building and bickering with a robot who has a heart of gold.
    — Adrienne So, WIRED, 30 Jan. 2024
  • Readers get all the best parts of swoony love story tropes, magical world-building and high-stakes adventure.
    — Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY, 14 Dec. 2024
  • The books are epic in every sense of the word, from their incredible world-building to an extensive cast of characters.
    — Milan Polk, Men's Health, 28 Aug. 2023
  • Chu’s vibrant world-building is a significant part of that.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Nov. 2024
  • For a wildly imaginative world-building project, the film is mostly ghastly to look at, all flat green-screen and blocky sets for the cast to scramble upon.
    — Katie Walsh, Boston Herald, 3 Apr. 2025
  • Despite this mild glitch, the Tokyo example is a mind-blowing exercise in world-building.
    — Steven Levy, WIRED, 15 Feb. 2024
  • The reason people are so invested and are so emotionally moved by it all is because of that world-building and slow build.
    — Liza Esquibias, People.com, 4 Apr. 2025
  • With a new Hellraiser reboot available to stream on Hulu, this is your chance to glory over the gloom, gore, and arch world-building of the original 1987 British horror film.
    — EW.com, 19 Dec. 2023
  • Old-money aesthetic is not complete without the requisite world-building: the yacht, the Dom Pérignon, the Lake Como backdrop.
    — Sarah Spellings, Vogue, 12 Dec. 2023
  • Will the fanboys go for all this elaborate world-building, inevitably leading to a deadly faceoff on the insurgents’ way home to Veldt?
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 15 Dec. 2023
  • In crafting Seoul circa 2050, Han described her approach to world-building that balances futurism with nostalgia.
    — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 22 Apr. 2025

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

Last Updated: