How to Use impugn in a Sentence

impugn

verb
  • Her motives have been scrutinized and impugned.
  • He impugned his rival's character.
  • None of this impugns Moskowitz’s or Fry’s motives.
    — Patrick Eddington, Oc Register, 1 June 2026
  • Besides, skeptics will not be able to impugn his scholarship for long.
    — Lance Morrow, WSJ, 17 June 2019
  • Where, on the Schorr-Bitburg scale, does this attempt to impugn Cawthorn land?
    — Jack Butler, National Review, 14 Aug. 2020
  • This isn’t an attempt to ban speech, or impugn anyone’s First Amendment rights.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 12 June 2024
  • This isn’t an attempt to ban speech, or impugn anyone’s First Amendment rights.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 12 June 2024
  • This isn’t an attempt to ban speech, or impugn anyone’s First Amendment rights.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 12 June 2024
  • How dare this dumb-dumb try to impugn the Bachelorette's character.
    — Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 4 July 2023
  • As a growing body of consistent evidence can be hard to explain away, one fallback is to impugn the source.
    — Sean B. Carroll, Scientific American, 8 Nov. 2020
  • Those numbers reflect the measures Bennett impugns as, pardon the term, overkill.
    — Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 17 Apr. 2020
  • Campaigns that are trailing in the polls often impugn them, of course, but Biden aides cite reasons for their skepticism.
    — Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2024
  • Fields was grilled by his board last week and impugned by investors eager for a turnaround in Ford’s declining earnings and shares.
    — Keith Naughton, Bloomberg.com, 17 May 2017
  • To imply that some staffer is somehow pulling the strings of the President is to impugn the President.
    — Philip Elliott, Time, 23 Jan. 2018
  • Sorry, but that one play impugns Cooper’s football character.
    — Brad Biggs, chicagotribune.com, 25 Sep. 2017
  • These types of claims are not reliable or fair indicators of an officer’s conduct, and would not be used to impugn any other person.
    — Taylor Avery, USA TODAY, 31 July 2021
  • She was later called out for impugning her Democratic colleagues and had to rephrase her criticism.
    — Mary Jo Pitzl, The Arizona Republic, 10 Apr. 2024
  • So the markets are the ultimate arbiter of over whether the Fed’s independence is being impugned.
    — NBC news, 18 Jan. 2026
  • My patriotism and that of people in other border communities cannot be impugned.
    — Jonathan Dekel-Chen, New York Daily News, 6 Mar. 2024
  • Rather, it is being used to impugn Baldoni's character and demonstrate malicious intent on his part.
    — Barbara A. Perry, Newsweek, 27 Jan. 2025
  • Emcees had to impugn patrons' masculinity to goad them to the stage so that Daniels could flip them onto their backs and lower herself onto their noses.
    — The Washington Post, NOLA.com, 21 Jan. 2018
  • Harbour wants to explain his side of a tabloid story that impugns not just his relationship with a colleague, but his professionalism.
    — Daniel D'addario, Variety, 10 June 2026
  • Sign-stealing always has been part of the game, but modern technology has taken it to a new level that threatens to impugn the integrity of baseball.
    — Paul Sullivan, chicagotribune.com, 15 Nov. 2019
  • The school board argued that Pickering’s statements were false and that the reputation of the district and its employees had been impugned.
    — Eric Adler, Kansas City Star, 22 Sep. 2025
  • The issue here is not to impugn the individual Catholics who are decent people and who contribute to a more just society.
    — Chicago Tribune, 26 Jan. 2025
  • Nothing in this report impugns the integrity with our workforce as a whole or the FBI as an institution.
    — Amber Phillips, Washington Post, 28 June 2018
  • This destruction of evidence, this obstruction of justice, impugned Colangelo more than anything else that came to light.
    — Marcus Hayes, Philly.com, 9 June 2018
  • Ehlers’ duty as a public official includes upholding and respecting the legal process, not impugning it.
    — U T Readers, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Sep. 2025
  • But the Pentagon’s representatives seemed to feel impugned.
    — Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 14 Mar. 2026
  • Maybe that’s in part because scientists have been so anxious that the world — or at least the American public — not impugn their work as speculative or dangerous.
    — David Wallace-Wells, Daily Intelligencer, 11 July 2017

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