How to Use polemical in a Sentence

polemical

adjective
  • Many of them have not mastered the polemical ease with which to speak and convince.
    — Los Angeles Times, 4 Apr. 2022
  • Tarring someone with the pedant brush is polemical, of course.
    — Clare Bucknell, The New York Review of Books, 27 June 2026
  • But a good deal of recent polemical art suggests a use-by date that is not far in the future.
    — Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 21 Dec. 2020
  • But his astute argument would have been better served by a less-polemical tone.
    — Washington Post, 12 Nov. 2021
  • The songs that land on the slightly polemical side are the album’s most powerful.
    — Chris Willman, Variety, 24 Sep. 2021
  • Blog posts are short, topical, and often polemical in a narrow way.
    — Robert Minto, New Republic, 7 Sep. 2017
  • Within the heat of polemical exchange, there’s unfairness on both sides.
    — Jeet Heer, New Republic, 20 Dec. 2017
  • Her personal odyssey is more stirring than any polemical manifesto could be.
    — Ann Hulbert, The Atlantic, 12 Sep. 2017
  • Next month, Reed will publish a book that is, in the context of his polemical writing, unusual.
    — Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker, 31 Jan. 2022
  • The fact is, no great work of art can endure being drawn and quartered for a polemical purity ritual.
    — Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2021
  • The film is a celebration and supposed to be uplifting and not polemical.
    — Rafa Sales Ross, Variety, 17 Jan. 2024
  • The path his company chose, Boreing told me, is to avoid making polemical films.
    — Andy Meek, Forbes, 13 May 2022
  • Some described the weekly paper as too negative and polemical.
    — Kevin Draper, BostonGlobe.com, 19 Aug. 2023
  • The modern insanity defense has long been polemical, and the legal standards vary from state to state.
    — James C. McKinley Jr. and Jan Ransom, New York Times, 27 Mar. 2018
  • However, the themes found release in other forms, mostly polemical.
    — Los Angeles Times, 23 Sep. 2021
  • In fact, the city has now erected signs explaining the polemical history of the site, with information about its builder.
    — Nicholas Casey, New York Times, 12 June 2023
  • Positivism may not be possible in a pure form, but there's a spectrum between the objective and polemical.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 30 Aug. 2010
  • Thankfully, the story retains propulsion, even levity, thanks to its polemic approach.
    — Longreads, 20 Dec. 2024
  • Neither the Apple nor the Gabriel plays are exhortative in any polemical way.
    — Ben Brantley, New York Times, 9 Nov. 2016
  • When Godard and his peers began to make their own films, the world was able to see their vibrant, impish, polemical ideas about film put into action.
    — K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 14 Sep. 2022
  • The new document talks about gender and transgender people in a less polemical way than the church has done previously.
    — Eloise Blondiau, Vox, 12 June 2019
  • The tables are stacked, almost like a bookstore, with multiple copies of polemical works mostly aimed at the Clintons.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 12 Feb. 2018
  • But even in these books, handpicked by Dworkin for polemical purposes, there seems more going on than her narrow reading allows.
    — Elaine Blair, The New York Review of Books, 17 June 2019
  • In the end, Larsen and Letteney make their polemical point unambiguously plain.
    — Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 8 Dec. 2025
  • Millet’s literary writing isn’t polemical or guilt-ridden in the way of so much contemporary ecofiction.
    — Christine Smallwood, New York Times, 6 Oct. 2022
  • Mailer, whether in his fiction, polemical essays or reportage, always aimed to be consequential, to be fiercely engaged with his times.
    — Washington Post, 6 Oct. 2020
  • Hollywood has become petrified of anything close to polemical.
    — David Canfield, HollywoodReporter, 6 Nov. 2025
  • Everyone’s got a polemical opinion.
    — Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 9 Sep. 2025
  • Overtly polemical, it is meant as a musical riposte to the right-wing nationalism gripping Europe and other places around the world.
    — Bruce Handy, The New Yorker, 21 Nov. 2022
  • Even before a single vote has been cast, the exercise has devolved into a polemical shouting match between the president and his detractors.
    — Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, 31 July 2021

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