How to Use providential in a Sentence

providential

adjective
  • It seemed providential that he should arrive at just that moment.
  • We had made a providential escape.
  • Those quick victories seemed nothing less than providential.
    — Big Think, 29 Oct. 2025
  • Over the decades since Fleming’s death, his followers have persisted with this providential view of things.
    — New York Times, 16 Mar. 2022
  • By January, you may be showered with rewards for a job well done and could find your life greatly improved by a providential stroke of good luck.
    — oregonlive, 29 June 2020
  • For Menendez and his wife, who plays piano for the church, the move to Anchorage seems providential, just like the rest of the story.
    — Author: Lex Treinen, Anchorage Daily News, 16 May 2021
  • For Sangeeta Rajesh, a bout of illness in 2014 turned out to be providential.
    — Mallik Thatipalli, Quartz India, 13 Nov. 2019
  • On the way to Missouri, a providential thing happened in the ketchup aisle at a Walmart somewhere in Arkansas.
    — Southern Living, 12 July 2011
  • On the way to Missouri, a providential thing happened in the ketchup aisle at a Walmart somewhere in Arkansas.
    — Southern Living, 1 May 2017
  • But one place art can come from is a life full of forces-difficult-to-make-fit-together, a life that finds, in art, a providential instrument for reconciling the jagged bits.
    — Richard Ford, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2016
  • Here is a white man whose whiteness fails to yield any providential good fortune, and a sojourner in the wilderness of himself confronting the cipher of the universe with religious dread.
    — Benjamin Kunkel, The New Yorker, 23 Jan. 2017
  • The idea also arises from the notion that history is linear, directional, even providential.
    — Richard Stengel, Time, 1 Oct. 2025
  • Do believers truly plead with God to alleviate some of the suffering, to be an instrument of His love and providential care in the midst of it?
    — Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, 19 Aug. 2019
  • His competitive breakthrough, however, was as providential and unexpected as the broken board that introduced him to surfing.
    — Los Angeles Times, 13 June 2021
  • In this providential outlook, all events, even seemingly evil ones, ultimately forward a story of progress, and the great must at times rise above ordinary mortality with the promise of vindication by history.
    — Priya Satia, The New Republic, 20 May 2022
  • And so too is the perennial hopefulness symbolized by Ishmael’s having survived the wreckage of the Pequod and being rescued by the providential arrival of the Rachel.
    — Daniel Ross Goodman, National Review, 26 Oct. 2019
  • Church tradition affirms the providential nature of international commerce.
    — Dylan Pahman, WSJ, 20 Oct. 2022
  • In some ways, the histories of this school call back to those written in the 19th century, casting the country’s origin as providential—not quite an immaculate conception, but not far off—and emphasizing the morality and timelessness of America’s founding creed.
    — Yoni Appelbaum, The Atlantic, 8 June 2026

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