How to Use totemic in a Sentence

totemic

adjective
  • The point of the new biopic mode was to reveal totemic figures in a more complex way.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 8 Feb. 2024
  • The point of the new biopic mode was to reveal totemic figures in a more complex way.
    — Jordan Moreau, Variety, 11 Apr. 2024
  • In turn, this letter attracted protest from some younger party members, for whom trans rights are totemic.
    — The Economist, 5 July 2018
  • As a result, the totemic $999 price point is held by one of the M4 laptops.
    — Ewan Spence, Forbes.com, 28 Mar. 2025
  • The leak of the audio was a totemic moment in the campaign and in Brown’s short premiership.
    — David Runciman, Foreign Affairs, 22 July 2013
  • Wisconsin had already taken on totemic status among staffers.
    — Rob Crilly, Washington Examiner, 17 Aug. 2020
  • For economic performance, these changes are totemic, not real.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 24 Oct. 2022
  • Chances that growth will slow further, or the yuan will sink below the totemic level of seven to the dollar—or both—are rising.
    — Nathaniel Taplin, WSJ, 10 June 2019
  • That cycle will now take place in five programs over the coming months, with most of these totemic works preceded by shorter new pieces.
    — New York Times, 7 Oct. 2021
  • Thus the god of the clan, the totemic principle, can be none other than the clan itself, but the clan transfigured and imagined.
    — Glenn Adamson, Artforum, 2 May 2026
  • Gone is the idea of a totemic strand of DNA that extends 6 feet when uncoiled and stretched out in a straight line.
    — Elie Dolgin, BostonGlobe.com, 10 May 2023
  • But Ludwig Göransson’s Oppenheimer score feels like the most totemic of the bunch.
    — Nate Jones, Vulture, 4 Jan. 2024
  • Most of the lamps on view this week and next are works of sculpture in themselves, from a towering totemic floor lamp to a slight but dynamic nightlight.
    — Anthony Paletta, Curbed, 17 May 2026
  • The stethoscope, medicine’s most totemic object, had faced similar obstacles.
    — Clifford Marks, The New Yorker, 20 Jan. 2023
  • Now, another totemic presence is walking into the building.
    — Henry Flynn, Forbes.com, 15 Aug. 2025
  • One piece, the totemic Big Lamp, combines marble and stone in the base, while a textured palm-fiber shade brings softness to the form.
    — Rachel Gallaher, Robb Report, 25 Feb. 2024
  • The last few years have not been easy for the totemic figures of American history, caught in the crossfire of our culture wars.
    — Washington Post, 15 Apr. 2022
  • But the undoing of the totemic reform of Macron’s mandates would be highly symbolic.
    — Charlotte Reed, CNBC, 8 Oct. 2025
  • The books themselves resemble, as much as anything, the totemic novels of the midcentury.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 7 Dec. 2021
  • Such was its totemic power that a more inclusive version of the three words — all lives matter — was considered a dangerous heresy.
    — Rich Lowry, National Review, 22 Feb. 2022
  • That policy would have raised the retirement age from 62 to 64, and its removal was a totemic demand from the left.
    — Saskya Vandoorne, CNN Money, 14 Oct. 2025
  • The repeal of that provision has been a totemic issue to Hindu nationalists for decades.
    — The Economist, 9 Aug. 2019
  • The Trib was known as a writer’s paper, and while there Wolfe made forays beyond totemic somnambulism.
    — Ben Yagoda, WSJ, 18 May 2018
  • And Haley, knowing its totemic importance to Tyler also, runs off with it —this sacred object.
    — Kate Aurthur, Variety, 13 Jan. 2022
  • The Olympics have been delayed, and the same increasingly likely to happen to Johnson's own totemic project.
    — Edward Evans, Bloomberg.com, 10 May 2020
  • But this is not at all the Bergé known in France, where the collector and businessman is a towering, even totemic, figure.
    — James McAuley, Town & Country, 8 Sep. 2017
  • And there is the Instagram phenomenon of certain white ones taking on the totemic allure of the Parthenon.
    — Julie Lasky, ELLE Decor, 27 Apr. 2022
  • For all its totemic importance, Brexit has scarcely figured as an issue in 2024.
    — Mark Landler, New York Times, 25 May 2024
  • Wandsworth and Westminster, two totemic Tory councils, did not fall, despite Labour’s noisy campaigns in both.
    — The Economist, 4 May 2018
  • And the Apple iPhone has become totemic in these discussions, as they are built outside the United States.
    — David Phelan, Forbes.com, 12 Apr. 2025

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

Last Updated: