How to Use dissolute in a Sentence

dissolute

adjective
  • His dissolute, debauched lifestyle was due for a reckoning and could have sunk into tropes of the season’s theme.
    — Jennifer Maas, Variety, 10 June 2026
  • West is cut from the finest of rakish Duke cloths, a dissolute drunk, gambler, and brawler, until the love of a good woman brings him to his knees.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 17 Nov. 2022
  • Imbert reminds us of social change and collapse via brief flashbacks to Pierre’s dissolute life before his fall.
    — Armond White, National Review, 1 Nov. 2024
  • Kif is approached by Ray, a fast-living, dissolute childhood friend, with the offer of a real writing gig.
    — Olen Steinhauer, New York Times, 1 June 2018
  • Casey’s strongest recollections are of her dissolute, gun-waving and wife-beating dad, Julian.
    — Bob Strauss, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 Sep. 2022
  • One, Candy, is a dissolute superstar who abuses co-workers, shows up on set plastered and moans about how awful her privileged life is.
    — Chris Hewitt, Star Tribune, 10 Dec. 2020
  • Francis is the first pope to name himself after the mendicant friar, who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and service to the poor.
    — CBS News, 5 Oct. 2020
  • Lady Anne did work her charms on prospective husbands—from dissolute aristocrats to powerful commoners—but not only on them.
    — Martin Rubin, WSJ, 4 Aug. 2017
  • Probability first entered the teachings of men through the work of that dissolute gambler Pascal, who was willing to make a bet on his salvation.
    — Sean Carroll, Discover Magazine, 16 Nov. 2011
  • The Celine sculptures possess a dissolute drama, their icy white light toggling between the enticing and the clinical.
    — Rachel Wetzler, Artforum, 1 Feb. 2026
  • Ian Littleworth’s Happy, the dissolute son always looking for an easy way out, seems unsettled not only in his bearings but in his command of the script.
    — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2026
  • Her mother, Cora, a travelling nurse with an artistic streak, divorced her children’s dissolute father in 1901.
    — Maggie Doherty, The New Yorker, 9 May 2022
  • Tom Holland, the author of wide-lens books about ancient and medieval history, spoke about Caligula and other dissolute Roman leaders.
    — Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 23 Aug. 2021
  • Then the girl’s dissolute preacher brother Jib (Corey Spruill) arrives, uninvited and dangerous.
    — Misha Berson, The Seattle Times, 19 July 2017
  • Similarly, Early’s dissolute failson feels less like a self-portrait than like a darkly comic deflection, a gargoyle-ish stand-in for his creator’s anxieties.
    — Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2026
  • Dane receives more screen time, but his dissolute, oft-drunk character is hard to watch knowing the actor’s offscreen battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
    — Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 Apr. 2026
  • Banks’ wintry, autobiographical sixth novel turns on the lifelong conflict between a dissolute New Hampshire police officer and his son.
    — Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, 8 Jan. 2023
  • And Queen Victoria was just 18, a fresh girl-queen and a fresh start after a generation of dissolute royal men who spent like wastrels and fathered more illegitimate children than legitimate ones.
    — Los Angeles Times, 4 Feb. 2022
  • The Argentine Jesuit is the first-ever pope to have named himself after the 13th century friar, who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and simplicity.
    — Fox News, 12 Nov. 2021
  • The economist’s description of the Fed chair was admiring, almost tender— comparing him to a kindly gardener who knew just how much sunlight to bestow upon the plants, or to a father figure who could keep his profligate and dissolute children on the right path.
    — Literary Hub, 13 May 2026
  • What haunts the household in this classic of 19th century realism isn’t so much the spirit of the dead, dissolute patriarch, Captain Alving, as the tonnage of family secrets buried in the bad faith and moribund morality of a shameful past.
    — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2022
  • Russian propagandists are doing exactly that, right now, etching a picture of a virtuous, beleaguered country defending itself against meddlesome and dissolute international adversaries.
    — Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 14 Dec. 2022
  • But as evidence of the miscarriage of justice gradually came to light — including the identity of the actual traitor, a dissolute nobleman named Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy — more people joined Dreyfus’ cause.
    — Maurice Samuels / Made By History, TIME, 21 May 2024
  • First filmed before the pandemic and launched in its throes, a survivor of the era of streaming wars, corporate consolidation and Hollywood strikes, HBO’s addictively dissolute workplace drama remains as ambitious and authoritative as ever.
    — Matt Brennan, Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2026

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