How to Use professorial in a Sentence

professorial

adjective
  • Caulfield spoke with me over a video call while sitting in front of a professorial bookcase.
    — PCMAG, 25 Oct. 2022
  • Lanky and bearded, often solemn in tone but with a ready edge of sarcasm, Towne could show a professorial air.
    — Fred Schruers, IndieWire, 2 July 2024
  • The man was alone and smartly dressed in a button-down shirt, khaki pants and professorial eyeglasses.
    — John Blake, CNN Money, 14 Sep. 2025
  • Restrepo, who was wearing professorial glasses and a dark suit, went first.
    — Dhruv Khullar, New Yorker, 22 Sep. 2025
  • Bugliari’s coaching style today is more professorial than voluble or rah-rah.
    — Jason Gay, WSJ, 3 Nov. 2022
  • The dismal turnout has nothing to with professorial style, school ranking or subject matter.
    — Nafis Alam, Sunway University and Graham Kendall, Discover Magazine, 29 June 2017
  • Less so for Richardson, who is lower key and almost professorial, reading glasses perched at the end of her nose or on top of her head.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Feb. 2022
  • Instead of letting his movies do the talking, Tarantino has embraced more of a professorial role.
    — William Earl, Variety, 17 Nov. 2022
  • His tone can be professorial with occasional flashes of bone-dry humor.
    — Matina Stevis-Gridneff, New York Times, 26 Apr. 2025
  • Her account there is excessive and loose, a counterweight to her essays and memoirs, which can seem opaque and professorial.
    — Emma Alpern, Vulture, 17 June 2026
  • That professorial spirit is one of the reasons the Steelers signed Peterson to a two-year deal last spring.
    — Will Graves, USA TODAY, 3 Jan. 2024
  • Thompson peered at her through glasses; his white beard and mustache this culture’s shorthand for professorial sobriety.
    — Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 28 June 2022
  • The money will be used to establish a professorial chair and research team that will study mental health disorders such as bipolar disease.
    — Rana Wehbe Watson, Forbes, 29 Nov. 2023
  • But there’s also a tremendous amount of tenderness and goofiness and sort of professorial expertise.
    — Jeremy Strong, Vulture, 20 May 2022
  • Analysts and employees have said the style can feel professorial but sometimes just confusing.
    — Phoebe Wall Howard, Detroit Free Press, 6 Aug. 2020
  • But at his nearby office at MIT, Miller is nothing if not professorial.
    — Adam Piore, Discover Magazine, 31 Aug. 2016
  • These lectures were must-attend events, packed by students expecting to be dazzled by the oracular insights of professorial sages.
    — Jeffrey Collins, WSJ, 18 Mar. 2022
  • The voice turned more professorial, clinical.
    — Jon Michael Varese, The Atlantic, 28 Sep. 2025
  • Is this decision driven by her scheming to sabotage her ex’s professorial chances, or a covert desire to reconnect with her former paramour?
    — Abby Monteil, Them., 28 Oct. 2025
  • Gabriel has secrets hiding beneath his professorial veneer.
    — Judy Berman, Time, 30 Jan. 2026
  • Irish, who owns an antique shop in Providence, Rhode Island, wore a shawl-neck cardigan and round glasses, and had a professorial air.
    — Laura Preston, The New Yorker, 28 Mar. 2022
  • And Rachel Weisz is very professorial in all those gently eccentric power separates.
    — Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 10 Apr. 2026
  • Navarro, long rejected and unelected, made no attempt to set professorial boundaries in his new advisory role.
    — Ian Parker, New Yorker, 22 Dec. 2025
  • Swift has officially entered her Autumn in New York era, wearing a simple black slip dress, boots, and a rather professorial tweed fall coat.
    — Kathleen Walsh, Glamour, 19 Sep. 2023
  • In academia, Soyinka has held professorial and visiting positions at universities around the world.
    — Billal Rahman, MSNBC Newsweek, 29 Oct. 2025
  • Advertisement To be clear, academic freedom is too often seen as a narrow prerogative of the professorial class.
    — Nicholas Dirks, Time, 16 Oct. 2025
  • The picturesque front porches that define the town are abuzz with energetic cottagers who punctuate their days with cooking lessons, nature walks, yoga, professorial lectures, music and plays.
    — Dave Smith, Fortune, 24 Aug. 2025
  • But Kissinger approved, implemented, and, in professorial media turns, publicized it.
    — Christian Schneider, National Review, 21 Dec. 2023
  • But Kissinger approved, implemented, and, in professorial media turns, publicized it.
    — The Editors, National Review, 30 Nov. 2023
  • Ball of Fire features Stanwyck as a savvy nightclub singer hiding out with stuffy academic Cooper and his endearing crop of professorial colleagues.
    — Gwen Ihnat, EW.com, 16 Nov. 2023

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