How to Use reactionary in a Sentence

reactionary

adjective
  • Who better to lead it than the princess of the reactionary right herself?
    Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 10 Nov. 2020
  • The reactionary sentiment of the past decade seems less like an uptick than a storm surge.
    Heather Souvaine Horn, The New Republic, 12 July 2018
  • The Clippers so far have been reactionary in the playoffs.
    Los Angeles Times, 13 June 2021
  • The demise of the style was spurred by a reactionary resurgence of Classicism.
    Regina Cole, Forbes, 1 Jan. 2023
  • And, frankly, a level of patience that would make Job look reactionary, to do it.
    Chuck Yarborough, cleveland, 8 Jan. 2020
  • Already in the 1950s this reactionary politics had secured a niche on the right wing of the GOP.
    Adam Tooze, The New York Review of Books, 6 June 2019
  • Even worse, of course, are the decisions the reactionary bloc has handed down.
    Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 2 May 2023
  • The police and the courts are really set up to be reactionary, not proactive.
    Jennifer Emily, Dallas News, 11 Aug. 2019
  • This is about the same old reactionary politics of spite and self-defeat.
    Kyle Whitmire, al, 16 Apr. 2020
  • Voting like that will put Los Angeles onto a path of reactionary Band-Aids that don’t let the wounds of the city heal.
    Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 2022
  • That reactionary nature became clear to Frankel from the beginning of the process.
    Nick Romano, EW.com, 19 Sep. 2022
  • The road ahead Benner’s final caution for Pacers fans was this: don’t get too reactionary in the day-to-day ebb and flow of Oladipo’s health.
    Nathan Brown, Indianapolis Star, 26 Jan. 2020
  • The Lakers have done a good job presenting a plan that’s not too reactionary to their competitors in the West.
    Dan Woike, Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2023
  • Trump clearly juiced turnout among his base and brought in new reactionary voters.
    Crystal D. Carter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5 Aug. 2021
  • In this new, reactionary Spain, artists and actors were banned from entering the Ritz, a norm that loosened only in the '90s.
    Benjamin Kemper, Town & Country, 2 Sep. 2021
  • But a few good votes that are close to my heart do not blind my eyes to a fundamentally reactionary record.
    Chicago Tribune Staff, chicagotribune.com, 6 July 2018
  • Ever since the dawn of Jack White, artists who hunger to reassert the power of rock in a rockless age have tended to sound like reactionary young coots.
    Jon Dolan, Rolling Stone, 16 Apr. 2021
  • Democrats claim the effort is reactionary to their loss in the presidential election and the state’s two Senate seats.
    Mike Brest, Washington Examiner, 26 Mar. 2021
  • The revanchist canon this produces can be reactionary in its own way.
    Casey Cep, The New Yorker, 25 July 2022
  • But Warren's push is more than just a reactionary move, there's some data behind it as well.
    Ali Vitali, NBC News, 3 Feb. 2020
  • This puts forecasters in more of a reactionary mode, waiting to see what pops on radar, and how those storms will behave over the next 30 to 60 minutes.
    Washington Post, 11 Aug. 2021
  • Much of his recipe inspiration comes from being reactionary and coming up with things in the spur of the moment.
    Susan Selasky, Detroit Free Press, 23 Apr. 2021
  • For decades, the opinion pages were safe spaces for white, reactionary writers.
    Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 10 June 2020
  • But the more reactionary elements appear to have the upper hand.
    Miriam Berger, Washington Post, 15 Sep. 2023
  • The reactionary influence of these ideas doesn't stop at dating, though.
    Vicky Spratt, refinery29.com, 21 Jan. 2020
  • Baker said New Zealand remains in a reactionary mode and is not doing enough planning to keep the virus out.
    Nick Perry, Star Tribune, 8 Aug. 2020
  • These are readers of the reactionary right tradition that comes out of Europe.
    Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 18 June 2024
  • Many rap fans took to social media to bemoan the rise of reactionary figures in rap media.
    Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 12 Apr. 2023
  • Shifting the work paradigm from being reactionary to being proactive will change your work experience from stressful to joyful.
    Expert Panel®, Forbes, 6 Sep. 2024
  • Frank is powerful in his perspective on not really caring about the outcome of situations; being less calculated and instead being more reactionary.
    Rosy Cordero, Deadline, 7 Aug. 2024

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