How to Use vexatious in a Sentence

vexatious

adjective
  • But what used to be a vexatious burden is now a source of daily torment.
    Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 4 Mar. 2024
  • But that’s all done now, and finding anything that comes close is a vexatious trial.
    airmail.news, 7 Nov. 2024
  • Where commuters might see vexatious gridlock, of course, Massell sees glorious progress.
    Jennifer Brett, ajc, 5 Mar. 2020
  • Trump's dominance of the party has been vexatious for McDaniel in her role as party leader.
    David Jackson, USA TODAY, 27 Jan. 2023
  • The either/or requirement makes interpreting the results feel like one of those vexatious story problems from junior high math.
    Eric Zorn, chicagotribune.com, 9 Oct. 2020
  • Donald has used this type of vexatious litigation to intimidate, harass and bully for years!
    Paula Reid, CNN, 28 Sep. 2021
  • Ragweed, mesquite, junipers and Russian olive trees produce less showy flowers but some of the most vexatious airborne irritants.
    The Arizona Republic, 12 Apr. 2023
  • That statute allows a court to ban a vexatious litigator from instituting legal actions in any Ohio courts.
    Jack Greiner, Cincinnati Enquirer, 18 Feb. 2026
  • Charting Germany’s shifting relations with the great powers has been Merkel’s most vexatious challenge of all.
    Constanze Stelzenmüller, Foreign Affairs, 20 Apr. 2021
  • The federal vexatious litigator statute allows the court to impose sanctions on a case by case basis for vexatious conduct.
    Jack Greiner, Cincinnati Enquirer, 18 Feb. 2026
  • However, since ancient times, people have struggled mightily with the vexatious question of how to dispose of all the garbage generated by humans.
    Teresa Keegan, The Denver Post, 11 Mar. 2017
  • The Republican tax bill passed by the House would eliminate this vexatious tax, as would the original draft of the Senate version.
    Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 Dec. 2017
  • Madeira law director Brian Fox said the city is deciding whether to appeal the vexatious litigator ruling.
    Jeanne Houck, The Enquirer, 24 Sep. 2021
  • To deal with one especially vexatious instance of that, the NASA folks decided to just throw the motor into reverse and gun it, which turned out to work.
    Kyle Smith, WSJ, 3 Nov. 2022
  • There are a host of provisions within American law designed to prevent precisely this sort of vexatious litigation, and yet almost none of them seemed to have fired properly in this case.
    The Editors, National Review, 19 Mar. 2021
  • However, Shivers has been known to the state of California as a vexatious litigant since 2008.
    Kathleen Joyce, Fox News, 29 May 2018
  • However, one of our most common and vexatious emotional triggers is interruptions, and technology is a primary culprit in this regard.
    Philip Chard, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5 Jan. 2018
  • The legal profession doesn’t serve the public’s best interest by engaging in vexatious litigation when our economy is most vulnerable.
    WSJ, 14 May 2020
  • Colin Robinson, who survives by draining others of their energy with his vexatious personality, is often the bane of the other vampires’ existence.
    Tyler Coates, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Aug. 2022
  • Rail startups also accuse various national champions of hogging the best rail slots, of engaging in predatory pricing and of pursuing vexatious litigation against them to push them out of the market.
    The Economist, 28 June 2018
  • On one side is challenger Holly Cook, who has filed for bankruptcy twice, been held in contempt of court on nine counts, been pursued by multiple collections agencies and once was labeled a vexatious litigant, court records showed.
    Idaho Statesman, 13 May 2026
  • There was also a vexatious media that was dominated by critical columnists like the cerebral Walter Lippmann and the gossip-friendly Drew Pearson.
    Frank Gannon, WSJ, 22 Mar. 2022
  • Belarus sits like a large ellipsis at the center of Europe, an authoritarian puzzle to much of the outside world, worrying to its immediate neighbors, and a vexatious ally to Russia.
    Andrew Wilson, Foreign Affairs, 1 Mar. 2012
  • Decades later, he was declared a vexatious litigant by the High Court, Federal Court and Queensland Supreme Court, a label that barred him from filing any more claims.
    Hilary Whiteman, CNN Money, 29 Aug. 2025
  • Cook was labeled a vexatious litigant in 2018 until the Idaho Supreme Court in 2021 reversed the case, finding that the court abused its discretion.
    Idaho Statesman, 13 May 2026
  • Things fell into place for Hughes' vexatious defense, specifically against Taft standout freshman forward Rayvon Griffith, who was met with formidable double teams in the paint throughout the night, resulting in a season-low three points.
    Shelby Dermer, Cincinnati.com, 24 Jan. 2020
  • Democracies must also provide more protection for journalists and researchers working to uncover Russian corruption within our societies, especially by ending oligarchs’ prolific use of vexatious lawsuits to deter and impoverish opponents.
    Nate Sibley, National Review, 23 Feb. 2022

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