How to Use recidivist in a Sentence

recidivist

noun
  • Monday, Tisch said the city has a stubborn problem with recidivists.
    — New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 9 Jan. 2025
  • Being cast out by society is all that Hans — a recidivist if ever there was one — seems to have known.
    — Washington Post, 20 Apr. 2022
  • Forgiveness for recidivists is found outside show business, too.
    — The Economist, 5 Dec. 2019
  • While none of them is a BoJack-level recidivist, the friends who’ve helped to prop him up over the years have self-sabotaging patterns of their own.
    — Judy Berman, Time, 30 Jan. 2020
  • Likely recidivists were brought in to speak with police and prosecutors, who gave warning lectures about the consequences of getting caught with guns.
    — Lynh Bui, Washington Post, 9 May 2017
  • Time after time after time, Post was released on bail before June 9 because our bail system fails to address recidivists.
    — Kevin Rennie, Hartford Courant, 15 June 2024
  • There’s a hitch to making Wells Fargo the lead example of banning corporate recidivists.
    — David Dayen, New Republic, 1 Aug. 2017
  • Put simply, Wells Fargo is a corporate recidivist that puts one third of American households at risk of harm.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 28 Dec. 2022
  • However, identification is only the first step in breaking the recidivist cycle.
    — WSJ, 8 Aug. 2017
  • In the 1980s, Goodmark said research came out that said arrest was likely to decrease recidivist violence.
    — Alia E. Dastagir, USA TODAY, 23 Oct. 2021
  • In 2020 Purdue Pharma pled guilty again in court, this time to three felonies, thus becoming a recidivist offender.
    — Ed Bisch, STAT, 18 July 2022
  • Nicolas Cage’s recidivist criminal tries to go straight after marrying cop Holly Hunter.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 30 Mar. 2023
  • Overall numbers on recidivist crimes are hard to establish because the Russian government restricts the release of any public information that puts the war in a bad light.
    — Milana Mazaeva, New York Times, 6 Apr. 2024
  • Jarvis Taylor had three prior felony convictions, leading the DA’s office to charge him under Georgia’s recidivist law.
    — Bill Rankin, ajc, 8 June 2018
  • Prosecutors say the images included clear depictions of child pornography and bestiality and show that Nader is a lifelong recidivist.
    — Washington Post, 26 June 2020
  • But the states pursuing Microsoft through the court system are hoping to show that the world’s largest software maker is a recidivist monopolist in bad need of some serious remedial punishment.
    — Wired Staff, WIRED, 7 May 2002
  • Neither was my interview with the former congressman, mayoral candidate and apparent sexting recidivist, which appears in this weekend’s Talk feature of the magazine.
    — Mark Leibovich, New York Times, 19 Aug. 2016
  • It’s also got to help that Tisch has gotten hundreds of officers out of desk jobs and into the streets, and most of all is focusing police on the recidivists who commit the lion’s share of violent crime using every tool the department’s got.
    — New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 7 Mar. 2025
  • Anybody can understand that to stop bank robberies, authorities must — consistently and effectively — arrest and prosecute those who rob banks, deterring prospective offenders and locking up potential recidivists.
    — Maureen Flatley, National Review, 25 Jan. 2024
  • The Police Department and the Council are still negotiating over guidelines for when each would be used, with the civil tickets expected to serve as the default approach and criminal summonses issued for recidivists and those with warrants.
    — J. David Goodman, New York Times, 25 May 2016
  • The government evaluates each case individually and reserves the right to take action against the low-priority misconduct in appropriate cases — for example, in a case involving a recidivist offender or an otherwise hardcore criminal.
    — Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 9 Sep. 2017
  • Within the Moreton Bay area, a penal settlement for colonial recidivists was founded at Brisbane, followed by other penal establishments at Ipswich and on Stradbroke Island.
    — Britannica Editors, Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Mar. 2026
  • Gerald Ford, who was President during the peak of the arson wave, publicly mentioned the Bronx just once, to go by the American Presidency Project, and that was to commend Merola’s office for locking up recidivists.
    — Daniel Immerwahr, New Yorker, 18 Aug. 2025
  • In 2013, then-Attorney General Eric Holder instructed prosecutors to not seek mandatory minimum sentences against low-level drug offenders who were not violent, not major recidivists and not leaders of large criminal organizations.
    — Kristina Davis, sandiegouniontribune.com, 27 May 2017
  • Another inspection list recidivist in March, Sang’s is a member of Miami-Dade’s Wretched Restaurant Row, restaurants along 167th Street/163rd Street that have failed inspection, often with an earth’s core deep level of disgusting violations.
    — David J. Neal updated August 8, Miami Herald, 8 Aug. 2025
  • Swafford, described by police as a recidivist, was charged with Grand Larceny Auto, Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle and Obstructing Governmental Administration.
    — Greg Norman, FOXNews.com, 12 Aug. 2025

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