How to Use apostate in a Sentence

apostate

noun
  • Churches could be required to put apostates and atheists on their boards.
    — Richard A. Epstein, WSJ, 11 Sep. 2018
  • To tell Republicans this is to be an apostate.
    — Erick Erickson, Oc Register, 17 Feb. 2026
  • Brown and O’Neill cast themselves less as Sandberg’s heirs than as her apostates.
    — Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 20 Oct. 2025
  • Now the first is an apostate failed state; the second, a quiet supporter; and the third, a de facto ally.
    — Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 3 Sep. 2019
  • This would be the case also for an apostate, heretic, schismatic bishop, presbyter, or deacon.
    — Fr. Goran Jovicic, National Review, 13 June 2021
  • Given an ill wind, crowds can quickly become mobs, and mobs have a nasty habit of separating apostates’ heads from their bodies.
    — Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 27 June 2023
  • And doing it with her fellow Nashville apostates in the Dixie Chicks?
    — Mikael Wood, chicagotribune.com, 26 Aug. 2019
  • And 4 percent declared that defectors — apostates — deserved more harm.
    — Lilliana Mason, Washington Post, 16 May 2018
  • Abstract Expressionism’s greatest apostate — on view at all times for the next 50 years.
    — Roberta Smith, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2023
  • Sunni extremists view Shiites as apostates, and have carried out scores of attacks over the past two decades that have killed thousands of them.
    — Fox News, 2 May 2018
  • Its first city, which lay in an arid Arabian desert, excluded non-Muslims and sentenced apostates to death.
    — The Economist, 1 Feb. 2020
  • There’s nothing more tantalizing to a journalist than apostates.
    — Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times, 20 Apr. 2023
  • While Hon warns of the dangers of gamification, his book is not entirely a tech apostate’s account.
    — Rhoda Feng, The New Republic, 7 Dec. 2022
  • Moribund groups have sputtered to life, former brothers-in-arms have declared one another apostates, and erstwhile hunters of jihadists have joined their ranks.
    — Foreign Affairs, 15 Aug. 2017
  • These people call Catholics like me apostates for opposing the church’s doubling down on culture war issues at the expense of social justice.
    — Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 7 June 2023
  • The Sunni extremists view Shiites as apostates deserving of death.
    — Bassem Mroue, chicagotribune.com, 18 May 2017
  • The sudden arrival of a new class of tech skeptic, the industry apostate, has only complicated the discussion.
    — John Herrman, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2018
  • Like many in the early 1970s, Weberman saw his hero as an apostate, who had forsaken his role as the voice of a generation.
    — John Semley, The New Republic, 26 May 2021
  • If the conflict in Syria is a religious war against apostates rather than a geopolitical scuffle, more militants will be drawn toward the conflict and away from the crown.
    — Andrew L. Peek, Foreign Affairs, 7 Mar. 2016
  • But when someone leaves, the community labels them an 'apostate' – the scarlet letter of the FLDS.
    — Lauren Lantry, ABC News, 22 June 2023
  • Extremist Sunni groups, such as IS, view Shiites as apostates and consider shrines a form of idolatry.
    — Orange County Register, 11 Mar. 2017
  • That’s when Jeffs — who was already in prison at the time — labeled Williams an apostate, eventually resulting in him leaving and losing his home and family.
    — Mark Eddington, The Salt Lake Tribune, 12 Aug. 2022
  • Again the Falcons enraptured the nation, becoming the favorite team for other franchise’s apostates and Madden video game players.
    — Ben Baskin, SI.com, 14 Sep. 2017
  • The radical Sunni Islamic state reviles Shiites as apostates.
    — Fox News, 7 Sep. 2018
  • The Sunni militant group considers Shiite Muslims as apostates.
    — Kathy Gannon and Mirwais Khan, chicagotribune.com, 2 Aug. 2017
  • Most of the Islamic world now ignores ancient calls to jihad, concubinage or the execution of apostates and homosexuals.
    — Bartle Bull, WSJ, 26 Aug. 2018
  • The spark that ignited it all was a big-budget movie about the historical prophet Muhammad supported by the Black Muslims but damned as blasphemous by an angry apostate.
    — Edward Kosner, WSJ, 28 Dec. 2022
  • These choices cost Rustin allies and friendships, as former colleagues who afforded themselves the luxury of one-issue purity denounced him as an apostate, a hypocrite, a turncoat or worse.
    — Jerald Podair, The Conversation, 30 Jan. 2023
  • The Sunni extremist group views Shiites as apostates and has targeted Pakistan’s Shiite minority in the past.
    — Kathy Gannon, Orange County Register, 17 Feb. 2017
  • That book sets the Latter-day Saints apart from other Christian denominations, who even today often view the relative newcomer faith as suspect — or even apostate.
    — New York Times, 13 Oct. 2019

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

Last Updated: