How to Use anticipatory in a Sentence

anticipatory

adjective
  • No trailer this year has filled me with as much anticipatory glee as this one.
    — Sandra Gonzalez, CNN, 16 Dec. 2021
  • There is my boyfriend, pressed against a wall in anticipatory horror.
    — Sloane Crosley, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2024
  • Williams did a nice job with an anticipatory throw to Moore for third-and-5 for a first down.
    — Kevin Fishbain, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2025
  • The seats are warm, the beer is cold and the mood is a wintry mix of jovial, secretive and anticipatory.
    — Dave Orrick, Twin Cities, 26 Jan. 2017
  • What takes some of the air out of the anticipatory Correa balloon is the new schedule.
    — Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times, 14 Dec. 2022
  • Davie and Turness both leaving feels like an anticipatory move of the charter fight to come.
    — Christian Blauvelt, IndieWire, 10 Nov. 2025
  • Such anticipatory price increases are not a good idea and brands that do so will leave consumers with a bad taste in their mouths once the dust settles.
    — Pamela N. Danziger, Forbes.com, 8 Apr. 2025
  • That could cause some anticipatory trades to bunch up on Thursday, the last trading day of the year's first quarter.
    — Elaine Kurtenbach, Quartz, 28 Mar. 2024
  • Within five years, a new wave of smart hearing aids will be able to recognize stress, both current and anticipatory.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 1 May 2019
  • His jab-like bars mesh perfectly with the anticipatory Cobain beat.
    — Preezy Brown, VIBE.com, 1 Nov. 2024
  • Brees, with his trove of wisdom, has long been the rare anticipatory progression passer.
    — Andy Benoit, SI.com, 13 Mar. 2018
  • Strategic foresight and anticipatory risk were at the top.
    — Christine Lentz, Fortune, 29 May 2026
  • The morning of the show, the dressing room is ripe with anticipatory energy.
    — Anna Kaufman, USA Today, 15 Oct. 2025
  • Instead of waiting for a complaint, an anticipatory agent acts first.
    — Vikas Aron, Forbes.com, 28 Aug. 2025
  • Until then, the anticipatory grief felt by folks like Nina is a function of thinking ahead.
    — Philip Chard, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8 Dec. 2017
  • Rodriguez is a smart, anticipatory playmaker whose best trait is seeing the game a beat ahead of everyone else.
    — Eddie Brown, San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Apr. 2026
  • And in those anticipatory overnight hours, all of the layers soften and bleed together to create a divine mousse-like cake.
    — Alex Beggs, Bon Appetit, 18 June 2018
  • The ability to be nimble and think on your feet is just as important as anticipatory planning.
    — Andrew Frank, Forbes.com, 21 Apr. 2025
  • Living well in an unequal world means being haunted, at some level, by anticipatory loss.
    — Paul Salopek, National Geographic, 10 Jan. 2020
  • Green takes care with set-up and establishes good anticipatory dread, but doesn’t leave enough time to deliver on the horror.
    — Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 Jan. 2025
  • Its anticipatory tempo at the outset gives way to a more comforting pace as the lyrics propose pride and protection in the place of loss or anger.
    — Lisa Abelar, USA TODAY, 14 May 2024
  • Every time thick, dark rain clouds move over the deserts that surround Las Vegas, there's an anticipatory buzz.
    — Luke Runyon, azcentral, 9 Feb. 2020
  • Cramer stressed that the anticipatory nature of the market extends beyond the Fed.
    — Julie Coleman, CNBC, 17 June 2025
  • In the meantime, the musician is setting the anticipatory bar high.
    — Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 16 Sep. 2025
  • The game, unlike most shooters that make up the popular face of the genre, is deliberate and anticipatory.
    — Washington Post, 28 Dec. 2020
  • The summit, for all the anticipatory hype, was never expected to produce much in the way of new policies or strategy.
    — Barbara Demick, latimes.com, 13 June 2018
  • From the 6-yard line, Williams made an anticipatory throw to the back left corner of the end zone and dropped it right in the arms of Odunze for the score.
    — Kevin Fishbain, The Athletic, 29 July 2024
  • And also the anticipatory obedience by a lot of these news organizations who are more timid.
    — Michael Schneider, Variety, 22 Apr. 2026
  • The 49ers’ system is big on anticipatory throws which require the quarterback to throw to a spot and trust the receiver to be there.
    — Jerry McDonald, Mercury News, 16 Oct. 2025
  • Perhaps through taking back control in even the smallest way, our own fears and anxieties about the unknown can be lessened, and maybe even our anticipatory grief.
    — Jessica Gold, Time, 30 Mar. 2020

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