How to Use hector in a Sentence

hector

verb
  • The judge ordered the attorney to stop hectoring the witness.
  • At school, he was hectored because of his shabby wardrobe.
    — Dan Pompei, New York Times, 23 June 2026
  • But this wasn’t a dry matter of people with clipboards hectoring passersby.
    — Rob Walker, Bloomberg.com, 21 Sep. 2017
  • But wordplay isn't play play, and so Mom hectors me to go see if Kevin Sundem is home.
    — Steve Rushin, SI.com, 21 June 2017
  • In fact, a lot of Democrats overplayed their hand by hectoring and interrupting.
    — Fox News, 16 July 2018
  • He was brought down, in part, by his inability to resist hectoring others on how to behave.
    — Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 26 Apr. 2018
  • Those who resist this system are committed to an asylum, or, worse, hectored by their parents to get a real job.
    — Alex Baia thatcher Jensen, The New Yorker, 7 June 2019
  • This is subtle character work that, as described on the page, might seem hectoring or prescriptive.
    — Jeremy Gordon, The Atlantic, 22 Aug. 2025
  • One character even gets to rise from the dead long enough to both forgive and hector her frenemies, rivals and even her remorseful parents.
    — Hank Stuever, Washington Post, 11 June 2019
  • Critics of the big technology companies have refrained from hectoring users to quit social media.
    — New York Times, 13 June 2018
  • The messages varied in tone—hectoring, aggressive, snide, pathetic, lovesick.
    — Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, 12 June 2023
  • Dealing with the hectoring racket of New York fans may well have prepared him to withstand the noise of the Super Bowl.
    — Sally Jenkins, The Atlantic, 9 Feb. 2026
  • Another is verbal, consisting of a notably didactic and hectoring wall text.
    — Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 3 May 2023
  • As long as Sutter’s voice doesn’t have the strident, hectoring tone that turned Kings players against him late in his tenure, this could be fascinating.
    — Los Angeles Times, 3 Oct. 2019
  • In another turnabout, the central government has stopped hectoring city halls to restrain spending and instead has urged them to speed up investment projects.
    — Lingling Wei, WSJ, 20 Jan. 2019
  • Casie Baker, 29, a bank worker, said her family prodded and cajoled and hectored each other until the voting was done.
    — Richard Fausset and Campbell Robertson, New York Times, 13 Dec. 2017
  • His parents hectored Colorado lawmakers and filed complaints with both the hospital and various state agencies.
    — Shefali Luthra, Washington Post, 9 May 2018
  • Both women know that forceful men are all often described as strong and assertive, while forceful women are dismissed as angry, emasculating or hectoring.
    — Charlotte Alter, Time, 21 Nov. 2019
  • McCartney grew frustrated with perpetually having to hector his bandmates to record new tunes.
    — David Gambacorta, Longreads, 25 June 2019
  • Pratt was just another angry New Yorker hectoring calumnies against all forms of authority.
    — Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 14 May 2026
  • Perhaps more meaningfully, the message is the antithesis of a contrived political pitch or a hectoring sermon.
    — Philip Elliott, Time, 26 Feb. 2026
  • His only previous encounter with the police had come while hitchhiking in his service uniform; a state trooper had given him a hectoring lecture on the danger of taking rides from strangers.
    — Edward Conlon, Esquire, 21 Mar. 2017
  • One senior official who has participated in the calls told us that the intensity and urgency often veer into hectoring.
    — Michael Scherer, The Atlantic, 7 Jan. 2026
  • But life at a high-desert elevation has given them the endurance to compete, and once Mendoza’s hectoring sinks in, the book becomes a gripping, propulsive story about a playoff run.
    — Mark Athitakis, Washington Post, 22 Nov. 2019
  • Winter is coming for criticism, too, we’re regularly told, with warnings about its eclipse trailed by hectoring about the role of the critic (by the critic), about the need for her wisdom and authority.
    — Parul Sehgal, The New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2023
  • The open display of raw tensions was remarkable even by the standards of a state Legislature where committee chairs routinely hector members of the public and their colleagues.
    — Andrew Oxford, The Arizona Republic, 24 Mar. 2021
  • At the center of all the talk was Melissa Leo’s performance as a cruel, hectoring Mother Superior.
    — Richard Lawson, VanityFair.com, 30 Jan. 2017
  • Only a civilization addicted to frivolity and hectored by self-hating intellectuals — that is, ours — could have let the giant step go unfollowed so long or think so fleetingly of it now.
    — Nr Editors, National Review, 25 July 2019
  • For over a century, citizens have been surveilled while the media is harassed and hectored into compromise, so that the official rhetoric of Slavic suprematism can go unchallenged.
    — Literary Hub, 3 Apr. 2026
  • Scored for a 16-piece band that often sounds as if ballooned into something 10 times its size, the music hectored the audience persistently, often at odds with the contours of the vocal lines.
    — Ricahrd S. Ginell, latimes.com, 19 Mar. 2018

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