How to Use rhetorical in a Sentence

rhetorical

adjective
  • My question was rhetorical. I wasn't really expecting an answer.
  • The two are neck and neck in a race to the rhetorical middle.
    — Faith Bottum, WSJ, 26 Sep. 2022
  • Many of us are getting stuck in the same rhetorical cul-de-sacs.
    — W. Kamau Bell, CNN, 2 May 2021
  • Downes asks at one point, and the question is meant to be rhetorical.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 13 Oct. 2023
  • Here are some of the rhetorical highlights in their own words.
    — Ronald J. Hansen, AZCentral.com, 22 Sep. 2025
  • These are not mere rhetorical jabs and insults.
    — Douglas Rediker, Foreign Affairs, 17 Dec. 2025
  • There is more than a kernel of truth in this rhetorical excess.
    — Tom Simonite, WIRED, 10 June 2019
  • The shift is mainly rhetorical, and action may yet be some way off.
    — Richard Barley, WSJ, 28 June 2017
  • In this case, the power was rhetorical.
    — Brian Stelter, CNN Money, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Dougherty has become a star of the strike for her blunt rhetorical style.
    — Gene Maddaus, Variety, 27 May 2023
  • Some of those threats were intended to be rhetorical, at least in the short run.
    — Washington Post, 13 June 2019
  • But the world seems to have gotten used to Trump’s shifty rhetorical style.
    — Mattathias Schwartz, The Intercept, 22 May 2017
  • For now, at least, Locsin doesn’t feel obliged to hold his rhetorical fire.
    — Joel Gehrke, Washington Examiner, 3 May 2021
  • That is not a rhetorical flourish.
    — Zennon Kapron, Forbes.com, 20 May 2026
  • But Trump so far, it’s mostly been rhetorical.
    — NBC news, 28 June 2026
  • For a while the threat to the survival of the agreement looked more rhetorical than real.
    — The Economist, 28 Mar. 2018
  • That’s supposed to be a rhetorical question to tease out your true favorite.
    — Ian McNulty | Staff Writer, NOLA.com, 21 Dec. 2020
  • That marks a rhetorical shift, if not a complete change in strategy.
    — Jessie Yeung, CNN Money, 7 Apr. 2026
  • To answer the rhetorical question, the answer is no, no there isn't.
    — Shelby Stewart, Houston Chronicle, 4 Aug. 2020
  • To be fair, even Kahn evinced some skepticism about his windy, rhetorical flights.
    — Alex Beam, WSJ, 31 Dec. 2020
  • These are not rhetorical musings.
    — Jerry Brewer, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2026
  • The courage being tested is not rhetorical.
    — Monica Sanders, Forbes.com, 25 Jan. 2026
  • To argue on this rhetorical ground is to disable the argument from the start.
    — Merve Emre, The New Yorker, 11 July 2023
  • As Mueller spoke, politicos and others sought the rhetorical upper hand on what to make of it all.
    — Ronald J. Hansen, azcentral, 24 July 2019
  • For many, the question of whether screening Rust was even a good idea stands purely rhetorical.
    — Nick Newman, Vulture, 20 Nov. 2024
  • Lloyd knew the answer to that rhetorical question, but there was more on Lloyd’s mind than money.
    — Josh Newman, The Salt Lake Tribune, 2 Dec. 2021
  • The best part about it, though, is that the complaints are required to be rhetorical, Curvey says.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 9 June 2021
  • Then Freud makes one of the sly rhetorical turns by which his work is marked and that give it its special potency.
    — Janet Malcolm, The New York Review of Books, 24 Mar. 2020
  • But both men benefit from a shock-and-awe rhetorical strategy.
    — Helen Lewis, The Atlantic, 14 May 2026
  • But what about Netanyahu, a man in thrall to the hard right and not exactly known for rhetorical restraint?
    — Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic, 21 Jan. 2024

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