pervasive
adjective
Did you know?
Is pervasive always negative?
Pervasive is most often used of things we don't really want spreading throughout all parts of something:
a pervasive problem
a stench that is pervasive
pervasive corruption
But pervasive can occasionally also be found in neutral and even positive contexts:
a pervasive rhythm
a pervasive sense of calm
The meaning isn't neutral when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) uses it. Beginning in the early 1990s, the MPAA started giving the R rating to movies with "pervasive language." Most movies have language throughout, of course. The MPAA is using the phrase "pervasive language" to refer to the frequent use of a particular kind of language: profanity.
Examples of pervasive in a Sentence
Mark Slouka, Harper's, November 2004
The manic money-grab excitement of the Nineties had never been altogether free of our pervasive American guilt.
—Norman Mailer, New York Review of Books, 27 Mar. 2002
Race was never articulated as an issue at the trial, even though its presence was pervasive.
—Howard Chua-Eoan, Time, 6 Mar. 2000
the pervasive nature of the problem
television's pervasive influence on our culture
Sheila Rohra, Forbes, 12 Mar. 2025
Congress reauthorized it in 2022 with guardrails to curb acts of fraud, which were pervasive after EB-5 was founded in 1990.
—David Lyons, Sun Sentinel, 10 Mar. 2025
The nightmare of murder gets a little lost in the more pervasive nightmare of, well, adolescence.
—Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Mar. 2025
Men’s health content related to topics like testosterone, vasectomies and premature ejaculation is so pervasive on social media, in fact, that a 2022 study waded through all of it to find some of the inaccuracies in the high volume of content that was already reaching men.
—Mara Santilli, Flow Space, 4 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pervasive
Cite this Entry
“Pervasive.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pervasive. Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
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pervasive
adjective
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