How to Use pejorative in a Sentence

pejorative

1 of 2 noun
  • Kooky is a word thrown around a lot to describe the new Netflix show — but, no, it’s not meant as a pejorative.
    — Andy Meek, BGR, 23 Nov. 2022
  • Her name has become a symbol, a pejorative, a way to demean and dismiss.
    — Dallas News, 28 May 2020
  • But when used by non-Romani people, the G-word is a pejorative.
    — The Foretold Team, Los Angeles Times, 11 Apr. 2023
  • So is hostility toward tourists, a word that has long been used as a pejorative in some contexts.
    — Michael Smolens, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Oct. 2025
  • The r-word, initially, was meant to replace words that had become pejoratives.
    — Scottie Andrew, CNN Money, 31 May 2025
  • But Brooks never imagined the pejorative could be stricken from its use in the realm of science.
    — The New York Times, Arkansas Online, 11 July 2021
  • No one in Anderson uses the term Redskins as a pejorative, or as a way to get a cheap laugh.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 13 June 2018
  • Being a game manager, by the way, should never be considered a pejorative.
    — Ann Killion, SFChronicle.com, 12 Oct. 2019
  • But before long, the term had been repurposed by those outside of that initial community for use as a pejorative.
    — Mikelle Street, Them., 1 May 2025
  • Now, Hank comes back to an America [where] just the word masculinity can be used as a pejorative.
    — Wilson Chapman, IndieWire, 5 Aug. 2025
  • Yet this, too, feels somehow in keeping with the folk spirit—the reappropriation of a pejorative, the making new of an old idea.
    — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 19 Apr. 2017
  • Gallego is confident that none of the pejoratives affixed to Democrats—weak, feckless, timid—applies to him.
    — Mark Leibovich, The Atlantic, 11 Feb. 2026
  • In mainstream media, outright slurs are forbidden (though not everyone abides) and anything that smells pejorative is called out.
    — Keith Kloor, Discover Magazine, 28 Dec. 2012
  • Ideas like empire and spheres of influence were not anachronisms or pejoratives but descriptors of how geopolitics functions in practice.
    — Joshua Yaffa, New Yorker, 11 Mar. 2026
  • Okay, better, but wasn’t there something romantic and pompous—silly, to employ a favorite pejorative—in the poem’s very conception?
    — Brad Leithauser, WSJ, 12 Aug. 2022
  • Production is consumption, and neither is a pejorative.
    — John Tamny, Forbes.com, 27 Aug. 2025
  • His classmates snickered and called him indio—Indian—a pejorative for anyone with non-European blood.
    — Longreads, 19 Jan. 2022
  • Your character said this to Maverick as a pejorative, but did Cruise’s reputation precede him in the best possible way?
    — Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 May 2022
  • So strong are the negative associations that the word itself has become a pejorative for someone deceitful or disloyal.
    — Jacob Stern, The Atlantic, 8 July 2022
  • Some Sonorans, however, consider the term a pejorative, preferring instead tortillas de agua or tortillas grandes.
    — Patricia Escárcega, latimes.com, 26 June 2019
  • In fact, his ties to Shaker Heights are often used as a pejorative compared to the rough upbringing of his method-acting peers such as Marlon Brando.
    — John Benson, cleveland, 15 Aug. 2022
  • In the 1990s, when Man U became serial winners, the term was more a pejorative and not something United fans would say.
    — Andy Mitten, New York Times, 30 July 2025
  • Analytics has become a catchall pejorative applied to any bold, unconventional decision a coach might make—especially one that fails.
    — Alex Kirshner, The Atlantic, 27 Nov. 2022
  • At some point, the investments turned into investing itself, where purely financing finance (as abstract a phenomenon as there could be) leads to Lehman as a pejorative.
    — David John Chávez, Mercury News, 25 Feb. 2026
  • Dominic Packer, a Lehigh University psychologist who has written about groupthink, told me that the term has become a useful pejorative.
    — David Merritt Johns, The Atlantic, 2 Nov. 2025
  • But Napoleon quickly turned it into a pejorative to attack political opponents — influenced by de Tracy — whose republican and liberal commitments conflicted with his own ambitions.
    — Jason Derose, NPR, 3 Dec. 2025
  • Jogging was a huge fad in the 1970s during the original recreational running boom, but the word eventually became a condescending pejorative within competitive, race-centric running culture.
    — Brian Metzler, Outside Online, 2 Mar. 2022
  • Where Baldwin saw the degrading American tradition of blackface, Loretan saw only a costume within the make-believe world of carnival—an imitation with intentions more philanthropic than pejorative.
    — Thomas Chatterton Williams, Harper's Magazine, 28 Sep. 2021

pejorative

2 of 2 adjective
  • And that was not a pejorative term.
    — Mariel Carr, Scientific American, 20 Mar. 2026
  • This is a small grill, but that's in no way to be taken in the pejorative sense.
    — Steven John, Forbes, 19 Mar. 2021
  • Rick also finds a bunch of poor white trash (that’s not a pejorative.
    — Michael Harriot, The Root, 22 Oct. 2017
  • Aging is something to be aware of, and not in a pejorative way.
    — Kathleen Hou, The Cut, 12 June 2017
  • Luck made a selfish decision, but that is no longer a pejorative.
    — Adam Kilgore, courant.com, 26 Aug. 2019
  • Of course, the choices of just what to talk about can be seen as pejorative, but please know that is not my intention.
    — Stephanie Stradley, Houston Chronicle, 16 Oct. 2020
  • Like in the pejorative sense, but just to be more conservative.
    — Taylor Wilson, USA TODAY, 3 Aug. 2021
  • People do need to know, not in a pejorative way, not in a finger pointing way, but just look at the data.
    — CBS News, 11 July 2021
  • This is not a pejorative statement.
    — Jason Pettigrew, SPIN, 9 Mar. 2026
  • Not in the pejorative, party girl sense, but in a cool, chaotically chic way.
    — Kaleigh Werner, Footwear News, 12 June 2026
  • Their tactics worked and, over time, the pejorative meaning of charlatan stuck.
    — Elizabeth Heath, Discover Magazine, 15 Feb. 2023
  • In a familiar pattern, people subjected to pejorative terms can seize on them and flaunt them as a badge of pride.
    — John McIntyre, The Christian Science Monitor, 31 July 2023
  • Then a reader who had worked with Navajo and Pueblo tribes wrote in to complain about the pejorative use of the term.
    — James Fallows, The Atlantic, 1 Nov. 2017
  • Soon, their coach earned a slew of pejorative nicknames like Nuthouse and Outhouse.
    — New York Times, 9 May 2022
  • First, there is a long history of classifying emotion in a pejorative way and then blaming that on the uterus.
    — Alison Escalante, Forbes, 12 Nov. 2021
  • Wilde ended up in Reading Jail and died an early death, but the use of the word as a pejorative term long outlived him.
    — Kevin Fisher-Paulson, SFChronicle.com, 23 June 2020
  • Amazon declined to comment about products on its site with pejorative statements about Alexa.
    — Alexa Juliana Ard, Anchorage Daily News, 4 Dec. 2021
  • Amazon declined to comment about products on its site with pejorative statements about Alexa.
    — Washington Post, 3 Dec. 2021
  • Barack Obama, in 2019, used it in a way that was kind of pejorative and dismissive.
    — Brandon Tensley, CNN, 10 July 2022
  • Despite the fact that many of them describe him as awkward, geeky, stupid, and other pejorative phrases, all of it is said with the utmost respect and love.
    — Dan Reilly, Vulture, 24 June 2021
  • This is not a pejorative term, but the ordinariness of this family.
    — Brent Lang, Variety, 23 Nov. 2021
  • Its critics are right that neoliberalism has multiple meanings and can be used in a way that is more pejorative than precise.
    — Patrick Iber, The New Republic, 23 Apr. 2018
  • Emolument may indeed be a completely non-pejorative term derived from the Latin word for a miller’s honest fee.
    — Ruth Walker, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 June 2017
  • Often, people in the past who practiced things like magic, herbalism, and healing didn't call themselves witches, as the term was seen as pejorative.
    — Sarah Lyons, Teen Vogue, 13 Oct. 2017
  • If a distinguished Oxford historian can use beggar, then to my mind there is nothing pejorative about the word.
    — Stephen Miller, WSJ, 11 Oct. 2021
  • These aren’t just NIMBY complaints—not in the pejorative sense, at least.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 7 May 2026
  • In the past 50 years the number of pejorative monger terms has proliferated.
    — Stephen Miller, WSJ, 25 Apr. 2021
  • In Beijing, that description is regarded not as pejorative but, rather, as the natural order of things.
    — Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2019
  • Some social-media users suggested that floating letters in the video clip briefly spelled a pejorative German word for people of color.
    — Christoph Rauwald, Bloomberg.com, 1 June 2020
  • Some social-media users suggested that floating letters in the video clip briefly spelled a pejorative German word for people of color.
    — Christoph Rauwald, Bloomberg.com, 20 May 2020

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