How to Use slovenly in a Sentence

slovenly

adjective
  • He dressed in a slovenly manner.
  • That’s what infused his slovenly pirate thing with such style.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 30 May 2023
  • And this is where the movie takes off from retro mythology to become its own slovenly mod thing.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 4 Mar. 2026
  • Be a little slovenly in the garden; leave some old broken stems and let a little bare dirt show.
    — Hannah Nordhaus, WSJ, 12 July 2018
  • What could be better than being a slovenly hermit with no pressure to be social?
    — Jill Kargman, Town & Country, 20 Apr. 2021
  • The stiff-legged chair and shapeless pillow combine to suggest a slovenly human form.
    — Robert Campbell, BostonGlobe.com, 10 May 2018
  • Without the proper collar, the no-tie, unbuttoned shirt look can come off as slovenly rather than stylish.
    — Ray A. Smith, WSJ, 5 July 2017
  • That’s not to say the filmmaking is slovenly, or the acting lacks commitment.
    — Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 10 July 2019
  • Suppose an overbearing manager scolds you for your slovenly workspace.
    — Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 2 June 2021
  • Gilbert and George would never shoulder such a slovenly accessory.
    — The Economist, 15 Nov. 2019
  • Christopher Oram has designed a picturesque, if slovenly, storybook cottage of a set.
    — Ben Brantley, New York Times, 4 July 2018
  • Her Flora is furious and tender, sharp-edged and easily wounded, a slovenly mess and a whip-smart dynamo.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 24 Jan. 2023
  • Fat people were typically shown as sexless, slovenly, and utterly devoid of inner lives.
    — Kate Harding, Teen Vogue, 26 Aug. 2019
  • Keith and Anita have been living as a slovenly, decadent version of a domestic family unit.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 30 May 2023
  • Rees-Mogg was appointed by the famously slovenly Boris Johnson.
    — Burbank Leader, 22 Aug. 2019
  • Keith Richards’ and Ron Wood’s guitars are crisp and uncluttered, with most of the slovenly strumming of the past banished.
    — David Browne, Rolling Stone, 9 Oct. 2023
  • Trump’s bizarre and slovenly behavior with classified material was a disgrace.
    — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 21 June 2023
  • To Washington, a beard made a man look unkempt and slovenly, masking the higher emotions that civility required.
    — Maurizio Valsania, The Conversation, 2 Oct. 2025
  • Harbour had a breakout role last year as the slovenly sheriff in Stranger Things, where his pectorals were not necessarily in danger of ripping through his shirt.
    — Sarah Rense, Esquire, 18 Sep. 2017
  • People think junkies and alcoholics are slovenly, unmotivated people.
    — Tyler McCarthy, Fox News, 10 July 2018
  • The slovenly man-child paired with the attractive partner is old hat, and the sitcom dynamic between sad-sack husband and nagging wife feels unintentionally regressive.
    — New York Times, 29 June 2021
  • Think of Silicon Valley, and the notoriously slovenly offices of early Facebook, sticky with beer.
    — Penelope Green, New York Times, 20 Mar. 2020
  • Contrary to outdated stereotypes about video gamers being unhealthy, solitary, and slovenly young people, esports has largely become about bringing a healthy, social, and structured form of team play to the video games industry.
    — Wired, 10 Oct. 2019
  • In 2005, Pepe became a part of Furie’s comic Boy’s Club, a series about a silly, slovenly group of friends in an early-twenties funk.
    — Emma Grey Ellis, Wired, 27 Jan. 2020
  • Our attempt to respectfully bind the national wounds becomes a lesser version of the Republicans’ capitulation to the slovenly ignorance of the Trumpers.
    — Joe Klein, Washington Post, 8 July 2022
  • Felix Unger was a fastidious commercial photographer; Oscar Madison was a slovenly sportswriter.
    — Connor Letourneau, San Francisco Chronicle, 11 Apr. 2023
  • From Brooklyn hipsters to the nice people of Dallas, who desperately want to be perceived as urban sophisticates, the new uniform is simply a more comfortable replacement (more slovenly, many would say) for the old uniform.
    — Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, 10 Jan. 2018
  • After each has gotten recently divorced, the slovenly, unkempt Oscar Madison (the breaker) and the punctilious neat-freak Felix Unger (the fixer) decide to share an apartment.
    — Gregg Opelka, WSJ, 28 Oct. 2022
  • Humor is generally the province of trolls; think of the motley assemblage of unfortunates in the slovenly writers’ room on 30 Rock, and that gives you an accurate picture of the setting in which most good jokes and satire are created in America.
    — David Kamp, vanityfair.com, 7 Sep. 2017
  • That’s not to say the filmmaking is slovenly or the acting lacks commitment, but the observations regarding Montreal’s homeless population and the inequities of our entire global economic capitalist system become, well, fishy.
    — Michael Phillips, Detroit Free Press, 11 July 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'slovenly.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: