How to Use deterrent in a Sentence

deterrent

adjective
  • The pain of it should be deterrent enough to never make the mistake twice.
    — Lydia Lohrer, Detroit Free Press, 30 Sep. 2017
  • But so far, these measures don't appear to have had a deterrent effect.
    — Shannon K. Crawford, ABC News, 15 Jan. 2024
  • The only real question is how big this deterrent effect will be.
    — Tom Spiggle, Forbes, 15 June 2022
  • And for many soldiers, the threat of termination was deterrent enough.
    — Sarah A. Topol, New York Times, 20 Sep. 2024
  • Similar to deterrent polish, the taste of hand lotion isn’t any better.
    — India Espy-Jones, Essence, 22 May 2024
  • Once a sizeable segment of any species realizes the lack of actual harm, its deterrent effect may wane.
    — Anthony Trotter, ABC News, 31 Oct. 2023
  • State Department officials said the threat of sanctions had been deterrent enough.
    — Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, 29 Jan. 2018
  • Cases like Chauvin’s could also have a deterrent effect, some experts said.
    — Washington Post, 6 Apr. 2021
  • The deterrent effect of these policies has proved difficult to measure and appears to have been quite limited.
    — Julia Preston, Foreign Affairs, 25 Oct. 2024
  • Among the many, many issues our forebears didn’t worry about were the deterrent effects of capital punishment and the ideal attributes of a firefighter.
    — Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 27 Feb. 2017
  • This, the paper’s authors suggest, is because any deterrent effect is outweighed by the effects on misdemeanants’ labor-market prospects.
    — Charles Fain Lehman, National Review, 18 Apr. 2021
  • And when perpetrators walk free, the deterrent effect of the justice system is undermined by a growing awareness that crimes are likely to go unpunished.
    — James Cross, National Review, 27 July 2021
  • The secrecy undercuts the deterrent effect on officer behavior that many had presumed body cameras would produce.
    — Eric Umansky, ProPublica, 14 Dec. 2023
  • Pitcavage warned that any deterrent effect in the arrests of Capitol attackers will have to be bolstered by follow-through prosecution.
    — cleveland, 21 Feb. 2021
  • Mitchell has portrayed herself as a county attorney who is tough on retail crime, arguing that more aggressive prosecution tactics will have a deterrent effect.
    — Jimmy Jenkins, The Arizona Republic, 30 July 2024
  • People who participated in the Capitol attacks were identified and arrested, and that can have a deterrent effect.
    — Amy Cooter, The Conversation, 15 June 2023
  • Singapore authorities say there is a deterrent effect of the death penalty, citing studies that traffickers carry amounts below the threshold that would bring a death penalty.
    — Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY, 27 July 2023
  • Parity may play a political role by making arms control agreements appear fair or implying the adequacy of a state’s forces, but there is no strategic or deterrent logic to it.
    — Charles L. Glaser, Foreign Affairs, 5 Oct. 2023
  • However, there are no firm conclusions about the preventive or deterrent effect of international justice.
    — Shelley Inglis, The Conversation, 15 Mar. 2022
  • Nuclear attack could still disrupt a grid, to say nothing of the resulting concurrent deaths, but Chaudhary sees base resilience as its own kind of further deterrent action against such threats.
    — Kelsey D. Atherton, Popular Science, 13 Sep. 2023
  • And there have been reports that the United States and the world’s other nuclear powers are dusting off Cold War deterrent protocols.
    — Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Washington Post, 28 Oct. 2017
  • Maguire also argued that the deterrent effect of a traffic stop by an officer, and the discretion of an officer in issuing a citation or a warning, are more effective methods of battling the problem.
    — Robert Salonga, The Mercury News, 26 Apr. 2017
  • The $700 billion figure is on the higher end of public estimates of what is plausible, and those larger estimates assume sustained efforts and a deterrent effect of tougher enforcement.
    — Richard Rubin, WSJ, 27 Apr. 2021
  • Police agencies often announce checkpoints in advance to protect themselves from legal ramifications and because some studies show the practice has a deterrent effect on driving under the influence.
    — Jeanne Houck, The Enquirer, 13 Sep. 2020
  • The panel evaluates Russian President Vladimir Putin's immediate and long-term objectives and discusses how deterrent measures might be enhanced.
    — CBS News, 16 Feb. 2022
  • Despite such intuition, and despite the huge investments made, overwhelming evidence indicates that CCTV equipment has, in fact, little deterrent effect.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 4 May 2016
  • Anyone with an Internet connection and a little curiosity can see that, in the run-up to Putin’s invasion, Biden’s vice president, secretary of state, and national-security adviser all said the chance of sanctions would have a deterrent effect.
    — Matthew Continetti, National Review, 26 Mar. 2022
  • One area in which this has happened—and another example of the deterrent effect of the threat of total war—is Washington’s deliberate restriction of Ukraine’s ability to attack Russian territory, at least in ways that involve Western weapons.
    — Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs, 17 Feb. 2023

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