How to Use epithet in a Sentence

epithet

noun
  • Many were offended by her use of racial epithets.
  • The epithet was scrawled on both sides of the sign in red spray-paint.
    — Andres Picon, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 May 2022
  • On that day, the mob hurled racist epithets, smoke bombs, and fists at him.
    — Philip Elliott, Time, 4 Feb. 2026
  • Rapier’s sons also said the man called the girl a racial epithet.
    — Madeline Farber, Fox News, 24 Aug. 2018
  • Or the Black man punches the white man in the face and calls him a racial epithet.
    — Douglas S. Lavine, Hartford Courant, 6 Jan. 2024
  • At first, their white neighbors were hostile; his son was called a racial epithet.
    — Kari Lydersen, The New Republic, 26 Sep. 2022
  • Between the epithets and threats, there was one common theme.
    — Christopher Elliott, USA TODAY, 12 July 2024
  • That's when four white men rushed toward them, shouting racial epithets.
    — al.com, 19 June 2019
  • Each side tended to call the other side a bevy of ugly epithets.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 22 Oct. 2024
  • The president’s epithet didn’t come out of thin air.
    — Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 6 Dec. 2025
  • But the other half of that epithet was, at the time, harder to deny.
    — Liana Schaffner, Teen Vogue, 27 Sep. 2018
  • There is no stronger epithet in Albany than the charge of being weak.
    — Paul Francis, New York Daily News, 22 Feb. 2026
  • Neither of them soiled themselves on stage, neither of them said a racial epithet.
    — Leah Feiger, WIRED, 2 Oct. 2024
  • The final image shows a white man without a shirt on who has a racial epithet and swastikas drawn on his back.
    — CBS News, 31 Oct. 2017
  • Police say the student was beaten and called a racial epithet.
    — CBS News, 20 Sep. 2017
  • There were reports of death threats, along with racial epithets, directed at him.
    — Louisa Thomas, The New Yorker, 16 Feb. 2025
  • Use chapter titles or epithets to set up what’s coming.
    — Jd Barker, Rolling Stone, 25 Sep. 2025
  • The chip on her shoulder led her to write a grand statement song, its title a vulgar epithet.
    — New York Times, 12 May 2022
  • The last part of the lyric referenced a racial epithet for Black people.
    — Staff Reports, USA TODAY, 28 Mar. 2023
  • The suit claims this happened in front of a crowd of people and that Bieber also used racial epithets.
    — Colin Stutz, Billboard, 7 June 2018
  • People don’t know that one in three cowboys was Black, the very phrase cowboy was a racial epithet.
    — Anne Thompson, IndieWire, 19 June 2024
  • Rolling Stone points out Smith’s liner notes, which defend her use of the racial epithet.
    — Vulture, 28 Oct. 2022
  • One day, a co-worker stole his phone and recorded a minute-long video rant filled with racial epithets and violent threats.
    — Louis Hansen, The Mercury News, 27 Mar. 2017
  • There was name-calling at Marshall; their center [mouthed] racial epithets on the floor.
    — Mike Klingaman, baltimoresun.com, 30 Mar. 2018
  • His father chased after him, as did the defendant, who called the boy a racial epithet while taking the food back.
    — Gabe Whisnant, MSNBC Newsweek, 26 Aug. 2025
  • The cult-writer epithet, in truth, has begun to seem like a bit of a distraction, even an anachronism.
    — Will Stephenson, Harper’s Magazine , 13 Mar. 2023
  • The test question for which Taylor was placed on leave included a quote from the text which had a racial epithet.
    — Campbell Roper, Arkansas Online, 3 Apr. 2025
  • The fake-news epithet, in the most extreme case, has even abetted a possible genocide.
    — Uri Friedman, The Atlantic, 23 Dec. 2017
  • Both vehicles stopped, and the victim said the suspects approached and used racial epithets.
    — Staff Report, The Aegis, 1 June 2017
  • Though Hoichi survives and prospers, his epithet is a clue about which part of his body a feckless monk forgets to paint.
    — Christopher Carroll, The New York Review of Books, 25 May 2021

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