How to Use heretical in a Sentence

heretical

adjective
  • Doak’s conclusion would have seemed heretical just a few years ago.
    — Hillary Rosner, Discover Magazine, 30 July 2014
  • This may sound heretical, but choose the crisp Brussels sprouts over the thin fries.
    — Bill Addison, Los Angeles Times, 1 July 2021
  • If this is a heretical project, well, my subject is familiar with heresy.
    — Talia Lavin, The New Republic, 13 Feb. 2020
  • Hell, even when those species are biting, trash fish make for a nice heretical change of pace and some good lowbrow fun.
    — Will Brantley, Field & Stream, 2 Aug. 2019
  • Another option is to be a bit heretical.
    — Big Think, 5 Nov. 2025
  • To speak of trees as social beings remains, in some quarters, heretical.
    — Rebecca Giggs, The Atlantic, 17 June 2021
  • These statements were heretical in Athens, where Anaxagoras lived.
    — Manon Bischoff, Scientific American, 20 Aug. 2025
  • Ryan knows as well as anyone why that is borderline heretical for coaches to believe.
    — Andrew Beaton, WSJ, 22 Dec. 2020
  • In the British scientist’s own day, church leaders would have viewed many of his ideas on these subjects as heretical.
    — Livia Gershon, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Dec. 2020
  • But a lot of the conspiracies about heretical cover-ups are fairly modern.
    — National Geographic, 12 May 2016
  • There’s more than a hint of the Ogdoad in these two, a sacramental yet heretical consciousness.
    — Joy Williams, Harper’s Magazine , 14 Dec. 2022
  • The lacunae in the record lead Greenblatt to sprinkle breadcrumbs of heretical thought through his tale.
    — Isaac Butler, The Atlantic, 3 Nov. 2025
  • Sight has become a heretical concept; even a TV critic could get his throat slit just for joking about it.
    — Hank Stuever, Washington Post, 31 Oct. 2019
  • Some Muslim groups consider the prospect of a female imam leading men in prayer within a mosque as heretical.
    — John Blake, CNN, 15 July 2024
  • This advice might sound heretical coming from a shrink, but in fact, it’s informed by my experience with patients.
    — Richard A. Friedman, The Atlantic, 8 Aug. 2022
  • In Charlton’s world, this was serious, almost heretical, praise.
    — Michael Walker, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2025
  • The notion of watching horror movies on Christmas seems downright heretical.
    — Drew MacKie, Peoplemag, 13 Nov. 2022
  • In the era of hustle culture, arguing for a standard work week of less than 40 hours a week feels almost heretical.
    — Jenny Singer, Glamour, 27 Sep. 2021
  • There’s also the heretical thought that even PSG may benefit from some time without its star.
    — Jonathan Wilson, SI.com, 1 Mar. 2018
  • Salafist fighters shut down a celebration of Earth Day, also deemed heretical.
    — David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, 20 Feb. 2020
  • But in 2020, Gastón started having the kind of heretical thoughts that would have made his ancestors blush.
    — Matt Reynolds, WIRED, 2 Jan. 2024
  • Many Republicans have called for the heretical senator to be expelled from their party.
    — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 10 Feb. 2020
  • Church leaders understood these views to be heretical or pagan, reflecting pride and a lack of gratitude to God.
    — Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Some recruiters told would-be recruits that the state leaders had to be confronted because the state’s loyalty oath contained heretical ideas.
    — Brendan McConville, Time, 28 Sep. 2021
  • As a young man, he had been expelled from the city’s Jewish community for his heretical views on God and the Bible.
    — Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker, 5 Feb. 2024
  • To Americans, who log 7 to 19% more time on the job than our European peers, that may sound heretical.
    — Bryce Covert, Star Tribune, 21 July 2021
  • Such changes might sound heretical to those who grew up at a time when the theater was almost sacrosanct — a place to get lost in the latest cinematic adventure.
    — Brian Raftery, EW.com, 31 Mar. 2022
  • Ball was sympathetic to the Lollards, a Christian sect deemed heretical by Rome.
    — Susan Wade, The Conversation, 5 June 2020
  • Both of them viewed Christianity and Judaism as so alike that each faith might view the other as a heretical version of its own teachings.
    — Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, 27 Oct. 2024
  • He had been baptized a Christian, even if doctrinal affinity put him in the heretical Arian camp.
    — Cullen Murphy, The Atlantic, 9 June 2020

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