Poetic and compressed, it is not a pointed finger, or an artless blurt, but a grimly hypnotic horror story, making human what might in other hands seem merely grotesque.

"Luck, Pluck and Virtue" intends to be savage, but having no clear vision and no cutting edge, it's merely grotesque and lightweight.

And now, this thrilling experience had turned out to be merely grotesque.

These ranged from the merely grotesque to the truly startling.

But now they seemed merely grotesque physiological machines.

His children and grandchildren saw the dwarf clowns as merely grotesque; in the circus, they existed solely to be laughed at.

To one person a story is terrible beyond all imagination; to another, it is merely grotesque.

Everywhere were deserted temples and desolate, leering images, some in the image of the Idol of Birkbegn, others merely grotesque.

About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog.

That Bert, with a straight face, should offer it to her at this time struck her as merely grotesque.