How to Use protagonist in a Sentence

protagonist

noun
  • She was a leading protagonist in the civil rights movement.
  • Milton Friedman is usually cited as the leading American protagonist of monetarism.
  • The first frame of the film is of its protagonist’s eyes.
    — Murtada Elfadl, Variety, 7 Sep. 2025
  • The protagonist of this yarn is cats.
    — Stephen Wilder, Cincinnati Enquirer, 3 Mar. 2026
  • And that's what Maya as a protagonist in the book goes through as well.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 7 Mar. 2023
  • Killjoy's vengeful protagonists gave me a lot of new ideas about how to kill men.
    — The Week Staff, The Week, 29 May 2023
  • But there is one man who has emerged as the campaign’s chief protagonist.
    — Claire Moses, New York Times, 21 Nov. 2023
  • All three of those protagonists have been weakened in their roles by what has gone on.
    — Nasser Hussain, New York Times, 23 June 2026
  • Rather, the protagonist dozes right through it.
    — John Swansburg, The Atlantic, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Renko, the film’s child protagonist, stands out.
    — Blake Simons, IndieWire, 6 Oct. 2025
  • But for me, Hana, the protagonist, is the most straight-laced of them all.
    — Literary Hub, 23 Mar. 2026
  • Our goal is to create a protagonist who is hanging on by a thread.
    — Chris Gardner, HollywoodReporter, 7 Mar. 2026
  • It was set in jail and one of her protagonists had these impulses too.
    — Marta Balaga, Variety, 13 Mar. 2023
  • But by the end of the film, our intrepid protagonist gains a new outlook on things.
    — Larry Stansbury, Good Housekeeping, 19 Sep. 2022
  • Maybe the new protagonist could be the pedestrian who tried but failed to save her?
    — Jessica Goldstein, Vulture, 22 Dec. 2021
  • Well, one of the lead protagonists in my book is inspired by myself.
    — Ana Osorno, Them, 14 Feb. 2025
  • Lee says that the power of the protagonists' love story hit close to home for her.
    — Carly Tagen-Dye, PEOPLE, 30 Oct. 2025
  • Plemons adds both menace and pathos to this poor thing of a protagonist.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 23 Oct. 2025
  • How often do the protagonists in movies like this take time to call their mothers?
    — Peter Debruge, Variety, 24 Aug. 2025
  • The new game will feature a playable female protagonist for the first time.
    — Time, 25 Aug. 2023
  • The protagonists are good, hot men, deserving of the love that comes their way.
    — E. Alex Jung, Vulture, 23 Feb. 2026
  • Our protagonist downs another shot, shakes her shiny blonde hair loose and walks right up to him.
    — Lyric Li, Washington Post, 4 Feb. 2024
  • Those kinds of protagonists don’t deserve a movie.
    — Kennedy French, Variety, 17 Apr. 2026
  • But the creators have something else in mind for their protagonist.
    — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 29 May 2023
  • Shaista, the main protagonist of the film, dreams of serving his country.
    — Sune Engel Rasmussen, WSJ, 24 Jan. 2022
  • The episode ends with Abrams telling the show’s protagonist, Capt.
    — Washington Post, 18 Mar. 2022
  • Is that connected to who gets to be the protagonist in this sort of story?
    — Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, 8 Oct. 2021
  • The protagonist in this stage play, of course, is the traveler.
    — Los Angeles Times, 12 Dec. 2022
  • The protagonist’s name, Cumin Baleen, is a clear joke.
    — Diana Arterian, Literary Hub, 8 Oct. 2025
  • All of the protagonists are trans women.
    — Literary Hub, 12 Mar. 2026

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