How to Use detestable in a Sentence

detestable

adjective
  • He is a detestable villain.
  • This all came on the heels of a family tragedy that made my job seem even more detestable and stupid.
    — Lachlan Cartwright, New York Times, 3 Apr. 2024
  • And fans in other markets don’t see him as detestable or anything like that.
    — Albert Breer, SI.com, 29 Aug. 2019
  • Played by anyone else, Felix would be a detestable, sexist cad.
    — Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 2 Oct. 2020
  • The reality has been tested by many millions, and found to be detestable.
    — George Melloan, WSJ, 4 Feb. 2020
  • Since season 1, Steve has evolved from detestable jock to one of the series’ most beloved and protective figures.
    — Melissa Fleur Afshar, MSNBC Newsweek, 9 Dec. 2025
  • Social media soon was flooded with posts from people who found the character detestable, and the actor had no problem with that.
    — Matt Robison, Newsweek, 19 Feb. 2025
  • That partially explains the expansion of the detestable chorus from the school itself to its sponsor.
    — Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 19 Sep. 2022
  • Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and mark the foreheads of those who sigh and groan because of all the detestable practices that have been conducted in it.
    — Ysolt Usigan, Woman's Day, 25 Jan. 2023
  • Those who find the presence of Fox News on their cable menus detestable should let their cable operators know it.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2023
  • Overall, the film has gotten a mixed reception, and Strong’s character is pretty detestable.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 20 Feb. 2025
  • What’s more, a loss at Hell in a Cell could also force McIntyre to become an even more detestable heel in the weeks and months ahead.
    — Blake Oestriecher, Forbes, 5 Oct. 2024
  • Smith said because child abuse crimes are so detestable, some defendants will never take responsibility.
    — Deanna Boyd, star-telegram.com, 31 May 2017
  • Campy embraces the detestable with affection, as an actual aesthetic.
    — Marie Southard Ospina, refinery29.com, 26 Jan. 2021
  • The openness that allows art to be remixed toward detestable political ends is also what allows something hateful to be redeemed.
    — Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 3 Feb. 2020
  • Some of it has been riddled with detestable ideology -- some arguable, some blatant -- and others have been praise-worthy pieces of progress embedded in song.
    — Trish Bendix, Billboard, 20 Sep. 2017
  • There is a captivating oddity to how this tastily detestable character speaks, as if her frontal lobe were programmed with grammar and usage flash cards.
    — Troy Patterson, The New Yorker, 10 Oct. 2019
  • An unequivocal rejection of this detestable president will send him packing.
    — John R. MacArthur, Harper’s Magazine , 7 Dec. 2021
  • No matter how detestable the overthrown governments may be, precedents show that regime changes lead neither to democracy nor to peace, but to chaos, civil war and dictatorship.
    — Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, 3 Jan. 2026
  • Even the wave, seen recently at both Oracle Park and the Coliseum, isn’t as detestable as usual.
    — John Shea, San Francisco Chronicle, 10 July 2021
  • Ferguson’s Rose the Hat is one of the best movie villains in recent memory, by turns arousing and detestable, but always riveting.
    — John Wenzel, The Know, 8 Nov. 2019
  • This means performing some typical Twitter feats—fact-checking and #realkeeping when dullards spout detestable dumbness.
    — Adam Weinstein, WIRED, 12 Mar. 2015
  • For a Black girl living during one of the worst periods of race relations in America, these were the detestable but sadly predictable terms of engagement.
    — Tribune News Service, Hartford Courant, 17 June 2024
  • What is detestable, though, is McAuliffe’s disdain for lower-income families who want that same level of accountability from their children’s public schools.
    — Rory Cooper, National Review, 1 Oct. 2021
  • In telling its parable about the problems of wealth concentration so well, Succession was hilarious yet horrifying, small yet large, and relatable yet detestable.
    — Ars Staff, Ars Technica, 29 Dec. 2023
  • Keely Vasquez, who plays the thanklessly detestable Gussie Carnegie (the name says it all), delivers far more than this object of Sondheim hatred usually delivers.
    — Chris Jones, chicagotribune.com, 31 Jan. 2018
  • If the Russian soldiers were sometimes alarmingly young, the Donbas militiamen looked much too old and out of shape to be at war, and while the Russians were at first cordial, the militiamen made a point of being detestable.
    — James Verini Paolo Pellegrin, New York Times, 1 Nov. 2023
  • West’s sole attribution to the Jewish people of a widespread conspiracy to control society is a detestable lie offensive not only to those of the Jewish faith but also to this diverse, power-hungry cabal.
    — Skyler Higley, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2022
  • Soon after he was elected, the Half Moon Bay shooting occurred in January 2023, killing eight farmworkers and exposing detestable housing conditions for the county’s immigrant farmworkers.
    — Chase Hunter, Mercury News, 3 June 2026

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