How to Use depressive in a Sentence

depressive

1 of 2 adjective
  • The next seven months are a gray, depressive blur.
    — Staff Author, PEOPLE, 30 Sep. 2025
  • Don’t mistake the depressive air for his own.
    — Zachary Fine, New Yorker, 19 Jan. 2026
  • Amid all the depressive thoughts there can be plenty of lightness.
    — Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 25 Jan. 2023
  • The den resembles the room of someone who is stuck in a depressive rut, like Clark.
    — Dani Di Placido, Forbes.com, 31 May 2026
  • Compared with a control group, those mice behaved in more anxious and depressive ways.
    — Laura Newberry, Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2022
  • What these parents do with the fact that their son is plagued with depressive thoughts and has no coping skills to deal with them can be a life-or-death choice.
    — Kimi Robinson, The Arizona Republic, 19 Jan. 2023
  • Mice that were bred to display depressive symptoms, however, stayed slack.
    — Meghana Keshavan, STAT, 1 Oct. 2022
  • This can exacerbate depressive symptoms or even bring them on.
    — Lauryn Higgins, Flow Space, 18 Feb. 2026
  • Bipolar disorder is a lifelong illness, so manic and depressive episodes come and go over time.
    — Katie Camero, USA TODAY, 19 Jan. 2024
  • If thinking about thinking can send you into a depressive spiral, the right kind of thinking about thinking can help pull you out.
    — Avery Hurt, Discover Magazine, 28 Feb. 2023
  • Alcohol can make depressive symptoms even worse.
    — Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, FOXNews.com, 8 Mar. 2026
  • Yo La Tengo have always done a nice job of playing with depressive rock idioms.
    — Jon Dolan, Rolling Stone, 7 Feb. 2023
  • Has that person had multiple depressive episodes?
    — The New York Times News Service Syndicate, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Jan. 2026
  • There is a link, too, between stroke and depression; about a third of people who have had a stroke suffer some depressive symptoms.
    — Katia Hetter, CNN, 17 Mar. 2023
  • In that shift, the antipsychotic drug took me into a really deep depressive episode.
    — Anna Peele, Vanity Fair, 27 Jan. 2026
  • But her depressive’s escape into sleep opens up an entire world of portals into dreams adjacent to her own.
    — John Anderson, WSJ, 17 Nov. 2022
  • But Clayton said ending just one depressive episode early can improve a person's long-term prospects.
    — Aria Bendix, NBC News, 4 Aug. 2023
  • Most deaths are caused by substance use disorders and depressive disorders.
    — Yenupini Joyce Adams, The Conversation, 27 May 2026
  • In addition to anxiety, menopause mood changes can cause depressive symptoms.
    — Jocelyn Solis-Moreira, Flow Space, 13 Feb. 2026
  • But living as a stroke survivor does raise your risk for having depressive episodes,’’ Cronenwett said.
    — Lindsey Tanner, Chicago Tribune, 17 Feb. 2023
  • Substance abuse, such as alcoholism, is also linked to depressive symptoms.
    — Sandee Lamotte, CNN, 17 Feb. 2023
  • Metro girls strive to remain cool and upbeat, but often find themselves in depressive spirals or making others feel bad.
    — Alice Roth, Wired, 14 Mar. 2022
  • Everyone began to suddenly slump into a deep depressive state and fall behind in their work.
    — Jonathan Wolfe, New York Times, 23 Nov. 2022
  • To make matters worse, Thomas believes he was born with a depressive temperament.
    — Mary Carole McCauley, Baltimore Sun, 22 June 2022
  • Dan is a nervous recluse with depressive tendencies and one mental breakdown already under his belt.
    — Los Angeles Times, 14 Jan. 2022
  • And, of course, like most exercise, pickleball may help improve depressive symptoms and help players cope with stress.
    — Kells McPhillips, Fortune, 30 Oct. 2022
  • This pattern was also linked with reporting the poorest health and depressive symptoms at age 50.
    — Kristen Rogers, CNN, 3 Apr. 2024
  • The Belcher kids embark on a mission to solve a mystery that could save the family business and get their dad out of his depressive funk.
    — Nick Romano, EW.com, 4 Apr. 2022
  • This medication is meant to be taken every day for the prevention of depressive symptoms.
    — Verywell Health, 14 Feb. 2023
  • In recent years, Thomas has experienced depressive episodes and wanted to talk about it on social media.
    — Jennifer Miller, The Atlantic, 12 Aug. 2022

depressive

2 of 2 noun
  • The lead singer was a famous depressive.
    — Literary Hub, 15 Apr. 2026
  • The producer was a lifelong depressive whose last film had also flopped.
    — Washington Post, 31 Mar. 2021
  • For the cool depressives, the irony of the vibrant, cheerful colors juxtaposed with a bored stare works best.
    — Fiona Wallice, Harper's BAZAAR, 15 Feb. 2011
  • Garrett is lost in guilt over the accidental death of a friend, and suffers from dreamlike depressive episodes.
    — Maxim Loskutoff, New York Times, 18 Feb. 2025
  • Rankin has cast himself as the outsider, the solitary depressive and the only Caucasian main role.
    — Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 13 Feb. 2025
  • In the first years of the pandemic, the percentage of young people with depressive and anxiety symptoms doubled.
    — Lydia Denworth, Scientific American, 25 June 2024
  • Cases for depressive and anxiety disorders last year are estimated to have increased by more than a quarter—an unusually large surge.
    — Gary Stix, Scientific American, 8 Oct. 2021
  • And the same factors that turned many smug Democrats into depressives in November have elated many Republicans.
    — Daniel Gross, Slate Magazine, 31 Mar. 2017
  • King’s characters are writers, doctors, teachers, bullied kids, depressives, alcoholics, people on low incomes.
    — Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2019
  • The only things shaky about Relish are the junkies, prostitutes, suicidal depressives, and sinners who populate Osborne's songs.
    — Ew Staff Published, EW.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • Also, single high-dose LSD treatment very likely works in patients with depressive or anxiety disorders.
    — New Atlas, 3 Apr. 2025
  • Using her charm offensive, Hedda goads naive spouses to cheat, recovering alcoholics to drink and depressives to wander off into the darkness with a revolver.
    — Amy Nicholson, Twin Cities, 23 Oct. 2025
  • Hayes is terrific as the depressive and self-deprecating pianist, composer, and noted wit Oscar Levant.
    — Lester Fabian Brathwaite, EW.com, 25 Apr. 2023
  • None of these efforts seem to come to anything, and the requisite pause of anticipation and subsequent depressive or angry reaction informs the bulk of the character dynamics at play here.
    — Ryan Swen, Variety, 18 Jan. 2025
  • People living with bipolar cycle through manic or hypomanic (too much energy) and depressive (little to no energy) mood states, McInnis told me.
    — Laura Newberry, Los Angeles Times, 1 Aug. 2023
  • An imbalance in a person’s glutamate levels can lead to exhaustion, concentration issues, and clinical depressive problems.
    — Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 22 Jan. 2025
  • Like any self-respecting depressive who’s unready to address her self-sabotaging, Laurie bails on their impromptu intervention before entrées.
    — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 31 Mar. 2025
  • Writing about a listless depressive with seemingly no deep passions or excitements and no significant relationship with any other living being is the far greater challenge Lahiri has set herself.
    — Sigrid Nunez, The New York Review of Books, 11 May 2021
  • Ray is a ruminative depressive who was institutionalized in 1979.
    — Jordan Kisner, The Atlantic, 13 Sep. 2022
  • Some of this rather strongly recalls the depressive absurdism and cracked ambition of Charlie Kaufman, another filmmaker unshy about mining his own dysfunction for deranged laughs.
    — A.a. Dowd, Chron, 20 Apr. 2023
  • This nightmarish scenario is a dream for Sheila (an excellently unnerving Kaley Cuoco), a neurotic depressive searching for purpose and a second chance.
    — Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Sep. 2022
  • Bobo, a depressive with a habit of finding a pick-me-up at the bottom of a bottle, checks into rehab and puts a plug in the jug for good; Ferrara’s father never dries up, and in 1980 follows his first suicide attempt with a second, successful one.
    — Nick Pinkerton, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025
  • Aside from governing sleep, melatonin is linked to many other biological processes, like reproductive development, and may possibly underlie cancer and mental health disorders like major depressive or bipolar disorder.
    — Miriam Fauzia, USA TODAY, 24 Nov. 2020
  • Robin Weigert plays Verena Baptist, a charismatic leader in ivory cashmere, who reveals to Plum that her mother, the successful inventor of a famously restrictive diet course, was a depressive who knew her own plan was sadistic and unsustainable.
    — Rachel Syme, The New Republic, 12 June 2018
  • It's often associated with major depressive, bipolar or substance use disorders, report co-author and senior policy director at Healthier Colorado Christina Walker tells us.
    — Esteban L. Hernandez, Axios, 7 Mar. 2025

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