How to Use post hoc in a Sentence

post hoc

adjective
  • But these, deCervo likes to point out, are post hoc variables.
    — Zach Schonbrun, New York Times, 13 Apr. 2018
  • One thing both sides seems to agree on is that omission amounts to punishment, a post hoc retraction of playing-day success.
    — New York Times, 20 July 2019
  • Some of the jewelry and two of the firearms used in the crime have been recovered post hoc, according to authorities.
    — Mason Leath, ABC News, 24 Sep. 2025
  • But to arbitrarily impose a post hoc analysis after voters have seen such a person run a campaign is not right.
    — Michael Smerconish, Philly.com, 8 Jan. 2018
  • Not post hoc loan forgiveness, but tuition-free education or enticements to enroll.
    — Bonnie Kristian, The Week, 1 June 2021
  • Hines also criticizes the logic of trying to 'explain' Einstein's mind from his neuroanatomy, post hoc.
    — Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 25 May 2014
  • Moreover, a myopic reliance on post hoc liability for platforms does little either to prevent abuse or to punish child abusers.
    — Maureen Flatley, National Review, 25 Jan. 2024
  • Biogen later worked with the FDA on post hoc review of the trials that found some marginal improvement.
    — Zachary B. Wolf, CNN, 20 July 2021
  • There is something called a post hoc fallacy in logic, which says that because one thing happened, a second development is erroneously thought to be directly caused by it.
    — Bill Livingston, cleveland.com, 31 Oct. 2017
  • Antitrust enthusiasts often point to this as an example of salutary government intervention, but this is a classic post hoc ergo propter hoc error.
    — The Editors, National Review, 13 Aug. 2024
  • Our cancel culture relies on the unpredictability and post hoc nature of the enforcement to instill a spirit of creative and preemptive conformity among those with something to lose.
    — Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, 2 July 2019
  • Instead of overrelying on post hoc anonymization, enforce upstream governance, only extract what’s necessary, track lineage and align access with purpose.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2025
  • But restricting these post hoc rationalizations serve important values, Chief Justice Roberts wrote.
    — Henry Gass, The Christian Science Monitor, 19 June 2020
  • Subsidized premiums and post hoc disaster aid shift flood risk from individual owners to taxpayers at large and encourage development in flood-prone areas.
    — Logan Strother, Washington Post, 11 Sep. 2017
  • All leaders, after all, think their theories, ideas, and choices are consistent, logical, and well supported—and there is rarely an objective test that can prove otherwise or that does not rely on post hoc reasoning.
    — Foreign Affairs, 24 Oct. 2023
  • Recently, the algorithm was used to analyze post hoc the resulting workload for a single human deploying a heterogeneous robot swarm in an urban environment.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Nov. 2022
  • Many of the posts online cite no evidence except that the person who died had been vaccinated at some point in the past, using a common disinformation strategy known as post hoc fallacy, according to Jetelina.
    — Angelo Fichera, BostonGlobe.com, 4 Feb. 2023
  • Lowell’s eventual return to Hardwick, and his almost shamed gratitude to her for permitting him to come back to a life led in common, put a post hoc frame around the dramatic vicissitudes and fantasies of the flight to Blackwood.
    — Helen Vendler, Harper's magazine, 20 Jan. 2020
  • Decisions may be wrong, but the decision-maker lacks the capacity to recognize it, and AI, rather than correcting the error, often reinforces it by generating credible post hoc rationalizations.
    — Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Forbes.com, 27 May 2026
  • To determine whether each coital position had distinct spine kinematic profiles, separate univariate general linear models, followed by Tukey's honestly significant difference post hoc analysis were used.
    — Seriously Science, Discover Magazine, 23 Sep. 2014

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