How to Use impertinent in a Sentence

impertinent

adjective
  • She asked a few impertinent questions.
  • But people all around us ask impertinent questions all the time.
    — Harriette Cole, The Mercury News, 14 Mar. 2025
  • Father Byrne got up, exchanged words with the impertinent young man, and returned to his seat.
    — Mike Kerrigan, WSJ, 3 Aug. 2021
  • Members of a generation who care more about etiquette would not write rude, impertinent letters in the first place.
    — Jacobina Martin, Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2023
  • The founder’s family then made headlines with a brawl that involved an impertinent chauffeur, two stepchildren and a wrench.
    — Washington Post, 6 Apr. 2022
  • Much of his energy was devoted to dodging impertinent questions, of which there were many.
    — The Economist, 3 Oct. 2019
  • In some programs, such an outspoken sophomore might be dismissed as impertinent.
    — Childs Walker, baltimoresun.com, 9 Mar. 2018
  • Finally, there is that impertinent exhaust snarl Mazda worked so hard to capture.
    — Kevin Smith, Car and Driver, 26 Dec. 2022
  • The initial inquiry about aftershave was impertinent and, as it was delivered to the whole room, could simply have been ignored.
    — Jacobina Martin, Washington Post, 17 Apr. 2024
  • Yet somehow, the idea persists that actually asking for it is impertinent.
    — Eben Weiss, Outside Online, 2 Mar. 2023
  • The series cuts the tension and taboo with keen humor, often bordering on the impertinent, but Sam is never the butt of the joke.
    — Los Angeles Times, 9 July 2021
  • Every player was given a number and slips of paper and wrote impertinent questions intended for each of the others.
    — Michael Schulman, New Yorker, 15 Dec. 2025
  • Some Percy Jackson fans are acting quite impertinent.
    — James Hibberd, HollywoodReporter, 13 Apr. 2026
  • There were gleeful pigs decorated with pink flowers and impertinent lions with diamond tails.
    — Condé Nast Traveler, 11 Aug. 2021
  • But to make their case, the justices have stepped away from the bench and into the public square, defending the status quo against impertinent, often partisan critics.
    — Joel Mathis, The Week, 1 Oct. 2021
  • Audiences seek controversy not just to open their minds, not just to annoy their betters, but because to hear impertinent, unapproved talk feels like freedom.
    — WSJ, 1 Feb. 2022
  • Ron Livingston has built a career on playing the jerk who just can’t keep the impertinent thoughts percolating in his brain from spewing onto everyone in his path.
    — Kathryn Shattuck, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2017
  • In the 35th year of its existence, the team most of America had dismissed as an impertinent wallflower is going dancing.
    — sandiegouniontribune.com, 16 Jan. 2018
  • There this brilliant but bewildered scientist gets cornered by a plutocrat with impertinent questions.
    — Alan Scherstuhl, Scientific American, 15 Oct. 2024
  • As Alanna Dale, Leah Strasser begins the show with a playful and impertinent monologue.
    — David Lyman, Cincinnati.com, 29 July 2017
  • This should be said with a beatific bridal smile — the sincerity of which Miss Manners hopes your guests will be questioning for the rest of their rude and impertinent lives.
    — Judith Martin, The Mercury News, 4 Oct. 2024
  • For three long weeks that began to seem rude or impertinent, as if the Prize hadn’t been announced, as if a king and queen weren’t waiting for his answer, Dylan said nothing about the award.
    — Literary Hub, 28 Oct. 2025
  • Most of us experience these unhappy musings but can dismiss them as unreasonable and therefore impertinent.
    — Barrett Swanson, Harper's Magazine, 23 June 2020
  • During last year’s Himalayan standoff, the same newspaper launched a series of diatribes against impertinent India.
    — Sadanand Dhume, WSJ, 3 May 2018
  • Cocky, opinionated, and flippant, Jimmy might as well be every foreigner’s idea of what those impertinent cowboy Americans are like.
    — Tim Grierson, Vulture, 14 July 2024
  • Pelé was the vanguard of global soccer during its rowdy, impertinent 1970s campaign to convert the United States.
    — James Zug, WSJ, 10 Mar. 2017
  • The big thing bugging Danny, though, is the impertinent presence of Roberta (Aubrey Plaza), who wants to move past drunken conversation and kick up some kind of romance.
    — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 20 Nov. 2023
  • These people, and the free press that serves them, have every right to demand answers to their questions, no matter how inconvenient or impertinent the President and his cabinet secretaries may find the queries.
    — Errol Louis, CNN, 12 May 2017
  • Random pertinent and impertinent observations from a real basketball game!
    — Scott Ostler, SFChronicle.com, 12 Dec. 2020
  • That hasn’t stopped some of the French press from gleefully speculating, led by Le Canard Enchaîné, the ever-impertinent satirical weekly.
    — Adam Nossiter, New York Times, 14 June 2018

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