How to Use venal in a Sentence

venal

adjective
Definition of venalnext
Synonyms for venalnext
  • It’s the thumb in the eye arm, and Buddhists is doing all sorts of venal stuff in his last year.
    — Leila Atassi, cleveland, 19 Apr. 2022
  • But at this point, the most surprising thing Donald Trump could do is not act like Donald Trump—to not be a venal cretin for the first time in his life.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 28 Sep. 2020
  • Still, my father-in-law said Castellano was venal and brutal.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 5 Nov. 2019
  • Like all of us, museums are stitched tight into the fabric of a messy, venal, Darwinian world.
    — Holland Cotter, New York Times, 18 Mar. 2020
  • America is, at its core, a nasty, venal, selfish and racist culture.
    — Jason Johnson, The Root, 24 May 2017
  • Although your crime Was shocking and venal, Here’s hoping your sentence Isn’t too . . .
    — Pat Myers, Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2022
  • The film also reckons with the venal politics of the era, which Gray perceives as a warning bell for our polarized present.
    — David Sims, The Atlantic, 2 Nov. 2022
  • Murder, rape, arson, the whole catalogue of venal and deadly deeds.
    — Daniel Burke, CNN, 8 Oct. 2017
  • And thus does the demonization of fashion play on; its role as shorthand for all that is morally corrupt and venal in the world continues.
    — New York Times, 27 May 2021
  • His success at his new job leads to moral dilemmas and encounters with the company’s venal boss, played by Armie Hammer.
    — Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 Apr. 2018
  • Some of India’s media have venal inclinations, making them prone to bribery by those who want to use them to get their message across.
    — The Economist, 31 May 2018
  • Jay Mohr plays a venal politician with a troublesome laptop.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 3 Jan. 2022
  • He was praised as a can-do, pro-business pragmatist who would wipe clean and shape up a government widely seen as venal and rotten.
    — The Economist, 24 Oct. 2019
  • At the other end of the moral spectrum is Morton, treading the line between compromised, guilty mother and venal fortune hunter.
    — Viv Groskop, Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2017
  • Unbeknownst to them all, the Trenchards' venal staff plot with enemies to undo the family in exchange for some coin.
    — Robyn Bahr, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Apr. 2020
  • Britons went to India for many reasons, both venal and altruistic.
    — David Gilmour, WSJ, 22 Feb. 2019
  • The satire lands on obvious Miami targets — the rich, the shallow, the venal, the felonious, status seekers and zealots of every stripe —and the punches connect with all the subtlety of a storm surge.
    — miamiherald, 19 Oct. 2012
  • The fear of being shaken down by venal bureaucrats and taxmen remains a powerful reason to stay below the radar.
    — The Economist, 1 Mar. 2018
  • Venal politicians continue sucking the blood of the Republic.
    — John Kass, chicagotribune.com, 1 June 2017
  • Of all the film’s street slime, the corporation is surely Robocop‘s most venal, despicable monster.
    — Duane Byrge, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 July 2022
  • Not all of the venal characters here have brown skin or foreign accents, and, in one thread, anti-Muslim bigotry, not radical terror, is the problem.
    — Neil Genzlinger, New York Times, 2 Feb. 2017
  • On Twitter, the repository of all that is supportive and venal about our national cultural discourse, the love poured in along with a few haters and skeptics.
    — Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 26 Sep. 2019
  • All of a sudden, the rationale behind a continental super league does not seem quite so brazenly venal.
    — Rory Smith, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2023
  • The first page of John Keay’s history, published in 1991, describes its venal reputation.
    — The Economist, 10 Oct. 2019
  • Katumbi believes that the country has been dismantled by venal politicians.
    — Nicolas Niarchos, The New Yorker, 12 Sep. 2019
  • The story situates Matty as a smooth and cunning figure, several miles ahead of Ned’s venal legal mind.
    — Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture, 8 Apr. 2022
  • Pay is low, graft is rife and hospitals are often run by venal political appointees.
    — The Economist, 16 Dec. 2020
  • Although set in the present, the show is a direct descendant of 1940s noir films, in which an isolated man wanders through a venal Los Angeles, dealing with con men, gangsters, and a smart-cracking blonde.
    — Rachel Syme, The New Republic, 23 Mar. 2018
  • And who are/is the mysterious (but obviously venal) Adams Creek Associates?
    — Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2023
  • Unfortunately, compromise long ago became a dirty word on the right—a sign of personal weakness, if not venal corruption.
    — Robert Schlesinger, The New Republic, 28 Sep. 2023

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