How to Use martinet in a Sentence

martinet

noun
  • The prison's warden was a cruel martinet.
  • Paul was not a tyrannical father pushing his son like a martinet.
    — Marcos Bretón, sacbee, 25 Sep. 2017
  • Evelyn Gresham is a successful lawyer and something of a martinet.
    — Cressida Connolly, WSJ, 23 Oct. 2020
  • The martinet head coach earned back-to-back last-place divisional finishes and the undying enmity of his players.
    — Jack Dickey, SI.com, 23 Aug. 2017
  • Even that old windbag Polonius, played by Robert Joy, is less a bombastic grandstander than a dry-as-dust martinet.
    — Ben Brantley, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2018
  • From martinets like the Karolyis, Bela and Marta, to this creep Nassar, the beauty of the sport was truly skin deep.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 16 Jan. 2018
  • Tuomanen also plays Cassius, a martinet, envious, too ready to take offense, a source of comic energy.
    — John Timpane, Philly.com, 25 Mar. 2018
  • Van Zweden, in turn, was a martinet specialist in the standards who seemed appealing as an about-face from Gilbert, less electric in the core repertory.
    — Zachary Woolfe, New York Times, 7 Feb. 2023
  • His father, a martinet but also a stabilizing influence, died when Hernandez was in college.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 21 Jan. 2020
  • Also the disingenuous notion that someone would actually prefer drudging for a martinet spouse to pretty much any other lifestyle choice.
    — Glenn Kenny, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Aug. 2022
  • His chief antagonist is his caustic first wife, Queen Marguerite (Joy DeMichelle), who operates as a kind of a martinet death doula.
    — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 13 May 2026
  • The ex-principal of a private school recounts outwitting a troublesome parent—her state’s martinet governor, Brigadier (Hitler) Okon.
    — Julian Lucas, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2023

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