How to Use knee-jerk in a Sentence

knee-jerk

1 of 2 adjective
  • But what about the show’s own knee-jerk hatred of the public?
    — Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 26 June 2023
  • Are Democrats too knee-jerk to say that all this is unlawful?
    — CBS News, 23 Feb. 2025
  • But what needs to be avoided is knee-jerk reactions.
    — Madeline Coleman, New York Times, 11 Mar. 2026
  • The notion seemed ill-thought-out and knee-jerk, many producers said.
    — Ryan Faughnder, Los Angeles Times, 6 May 2025
  • Tech leaders must resist a knee-jerk impulse.
    — Agur Jõgi, Forbes.com, 22 Aug. 2025
  • The only way to break through the noise of knee-jerk reactions is to spend time with the songs.
    — Brendan Le, People.com, 19 Apr. 2025
  • Resist the urge for knee-jerk reactions.
    — Georgia Nicols, Denver Post, 24 Feb. 2026
  • The knee-jerk response would be to say that nothing has really changed.
    — Fidel Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 25 May 2023
  • Ed could tell that Joe knew his knee-jerk reaction to check his phone was the wrong thing to do.
    — Phil Blair, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 May 2023
  • Your knee-jerk reaction is to rush over there, drop everything and go.
    — Elyse Inamine, Bon Appetit Magazine, 24 July 2025
  • But if there is a leak within the FBI, who’s your knee-jerk pick?
    — Claire Franken, TVLine, 26 Sep. 2025
  • But the reality is this isn’t a knee-jerk response.
    — Sam McDowell May 19, Kansas City Star, 19 May 2026
  • So, beyond your knee-jerk rejection of his comment, take heed.
    — Harriette Cole, The Mercury News, 7 Feb. 2025
  • Guard against knee-jerk reactions today.
    — Georgia Nicols, Denver Post, 8 Apr. 2026
  • My knee-jerk reaction was to be a curmudgeon and say all of them except high school.
    — Sherry Kuehl, Kansas City Star, 22 May 2024
  • But that does not indicate knee-jerk reactions on the part of Tunisians.
    — Michael Robbins, Foreign Affairs, 14 Dec. 2023
  • Investors should resist the urge for the knee-jerk reaction of selling.
    — Eric Lagatta, USA Today, 7 Apr. 2025
  • That chapter explores a young punk’s knee-jerk rejection of pop music.
    — Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times, 18 Mar. 2026
  • Over the past 10 days, the markets have been hit by two massive knee-jerk reactions.
    — Nishant Pant, CNBC, 4 Feb. 2025
  • Our knee-jerk reaction to change is usually fear or at the very least anxiety.
    — Elizabeth Baskin, Forbes, 26 Feb. 2025
  • One of the hazards of a certain age is the knee-jerk tendency to reminisce on the good ol’ days.
    — Kevin Sherrington, Dallas News, 17 Mar. 2023
  • Why is the knee-jerk reaction to say something horrible rather than to say something nice?
    — Anna Cafolla, Vogue, 5 Mar. 2025
  • So if your knee-jerk reaction is to doomscroll for another hour, resist the urge.
    — Marc Brackett, Time, 21 Sep. 2025
  • But others saw the bill as a knee-jerk reaction that precludes sustainable change.
    — Trisha Mukherjee, ABC News, 3 Sep. 2024
  • Her words so galled many on the left, each column became a source of knee-jerk opposition online.
    — Jessica Coacci, Fortune, 8 Oct. 2025
  • There were almost universal, knee-jerk reactions to reject any thought of a fee to park at the park.
    — Harvey Levine, San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Feb. 2026
  • Big market fluctuations are the worst time to make knee-jerk decisions about your long-term plans.
    — Hillary Stalker, Nashville Tennessean, 4 Sep. 2025
  • And so are those making the projections, these knee-jerk assessments of draftees, and draft classes.
    — Omar Kelly, Miami Herald, 27 Apr. 2026
  • So when the pandemic hit, my knee-jerk reaction was to just immerse myself in music and work.
    — William E. Ketchum Iii, Billboard, 5 Apr. 2023
  • For many jacaranda lovers, the labor of preservation was a knee-jerk reaction, like shielding a child from a blow.
    — Malia Mendez, Los Angeles Times, 24 June 2025

knee jerk

2 of 2 noun
  • Trump and his trade team’s knee jerk reaction appears to be a tariff.
    — Christine McDaniel, Fortune, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Instead of taking the knee jerk reaction of picking up your toys and going home.
    — Laura Johnston, cleveland, 28 Feb. 2022
  • Shouldn’t have gone against Americans with your knee jerk pandering to the gun grabbers.
    — Alex Leary and Steve Bousquet, miamiherald, 13 Apr. 2018
  • My knee jerk reaction was to call the police and have Elenor call our neighbor friends a couple houses down.
    — Marina Gomberg, The Salt Lake Tribune, 25 Sep. 2020
  • Analysts anticipate a knee jerk spike in crude oil prices when the market opens Monday.
    — Dalvin Brown, USA TODAY, 15 Sep. 2019
  • The knee jerk reaction from many old fashioned meat machines, sorry, humans, is a concern around what this means for their income.
    — Q.ai - Powering A Personal Wealth Movement, Forbes, 10 Jan. 2023
  • This transit can create confusion, and doesn't support knee jerk reactions.
    — Venus Australis, refinery29.com, 19 Oct. 2020
  • The knee jerk is, how could a team in UC’s precarious postseason position not try?
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 2 Mar. 2020
  • Nakano said any knee jerk reaction to the North Korean threat could risk inflaming tensions across the region.
    — Ben Westcott, CNN, 15 Sep. 2017
  • And so, again, that's what the ocean teaches me, that when something happens, whatever that first knee jerk reaction is, question it and usually do the opposite.
    — Meredith Carey, Condé Nast Traveler, 18 Sep. 2020
  • The knee jerk reaction to provide ventilators for Africa is understandable.
    — Efosa Ojomo, Quartz Africa, 2 May 2020
  • The fact that our knee jerk reaction to a woman becoming single is one of exhilarated empowerment rather than pity or dismay shows that minds have been changed, even slightly.
    — Kathryn Lindsay, refinery29.com, 13 July 2018
  • Despite the substantial losses the crypto market took over the weekend, King said the selloffs were merely a knee jerk reaction that happens from time to time, and not something to worry about in the long term.
    — Fortune, 6 Dec. 2021
  • The Narendra Modi government’s knee jerk decision to curtail ties with China overnight could cost India heavily.
    — Niharika Sharma, Quartz India, 2 July 2020
  • But the narrative that opposition to the reconstruction is being driven only by an overblown reverence for Bill Bowerman and Steve Prefontaine is knee jerk and, wrong.
    — OregonLive.com, 29 Apr. 2018

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