How to Use valence in a Sentence

valence

noun
  • But soon, the word’s valence began to shift.
    — Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, 2 June 2026
  • The care movement brings more to the table than good poll numbers and the moral valence of children, though.
    — Elliot Haspel, The New Republic, 26 Aug. 2021
  • But its fixation on illness and death also gives it a darker valence.
    — Julian Lucas, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2023
  • But among its valences is that we are granted permissions that adult women rarely receive.
    — Zan Romanoff, Bon Appetit, 30 Dec. 2017
  • For his part, Butler noted that ardor itself has no moral valence.
    — Sam Adler-Bell, The New Republic, 3 Dec. 2021
  • In On the Record’s later scenes, these comments take on a more rueful valence.
    — Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 1 June 2020
  • Thousands of Christians flocked to his events, where prayer and singing took on a new valence of defiance.
    — New York Times, 6 Apr. 2022
  • But the two programs are distinct and have different valence for the two partners waging this war.
    — Bernard Avishai, New Yorker, 13 Mar. 2026
  • Scenes that are topical one season can take on unexpected valences the next.
    — Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 11 Jan. 2024
  • These results show the amygdala is central to determining the valence of tastes.
    — Simon Makin, Scientific American, 30 May 2018
  • But the baseball crowd’s spontaneous chants have a different valence.
    — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 28 Oct. 2019
  • But this year, the monitoring jokes have taken on a different valence.
    — Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 14 Mar. 2026
  • Twenty-seven percent of the words in that one sentence have a positive valence – even out of context.
    — Eli Amdur, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2024
  • Twenty-seven percent of the words in that one sentence have a positive valence – even out of context.
    — Eli Amdur, Forbes, 23 Jan. 2025
  • Our understanding of how the brain assigns valence still has important gaps.
    — Yasemin Saplakoglu, Quanta Magazine, 7 Sep. 2022
  • Out of all of that, somehow, comes the idea that trying not to get sick has some sort of suspicious political and moral valence.
    — Addison Del Mastro, The Week, 16 Feb. 2022
  • Religious outreach has a much different valence for a person who is not free to make his or her own decisions.
    — Emma Green, The Atlantic, 12 Aug. 2017
  • Often, these, too, have a political valence.
    — Lily Meyer, The Atlantic, 5 Sep. 2025
  • And for the first time, electricity bills seem destined to have a political valence.
    — Justin Worland, Time, 27 Aug. 2025
  • The Javelin has taken on a symbolic valence in pro-Ukraine online chatter.
    — Washington Post, 10 Mar. 2022
  • But the case titles themselves underscore the partisan valence of this dispute.
    — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 3 Mar. 2021
  • According to valence bond theory, what is the hybridization of the central atom of methane?
    — Brian Whitehead, Orange County Register, 14 Feb. 2017
  • Odor valence ratings are highly dependent in which on the context they are experienced.
    — Seriously Science, Discover Magazine, 9 Aug. 2018
  • Still, our method reveals the ability for marketers and academics to go beyond star ratings and beyond the valence of language.
    — Derek Rucker, Forbes, 20 Apr. 2021
  • For starters, don’t assign a moral valence to staying in the bathroom for too long, cautioned Eyal, the author and lecturer.
    — Mikhail Klimentov, Washington Post, 15 Nov. 2022
  • That kind of tedium and self-abasement, not to mention aches and intimacy with grime, have emotional valence to me.
    — Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 20 Oct. 2020
  • Finnish zoo visitors struggle to understand the emotional valences of tigers.
    — Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harpers Magazine, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Finnish zoo visitors struggle to understand the emotional valences of tigers.
    — Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harpers Magazine, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Just as each element has a certain valence, every line spoken in the Curie lab contains multitudes.
    — Josephine Livingstone, New Republic, 12 July 2017
  • Health affects us in a profound and immediate way so that health services have a different moral valence than most other goods and services.
    — Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, National Review, 11 Oct. 2017

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