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
Suzanne Blake, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 Sep. 2025
This pervasive fragmentation creates a vicious cycle.
—Emeka Ajene, semafor.com, 29 Sep. 2025
The sense of someone else having taken over the space is all too pervasive.
—Katie Da Cunha Lewin
september 26, Literary Hub, 26 Sep. 2025
The great human cost involved in construction works, river maintenance, and canal building is a pervasive feature of all powerful societies right up to the modern era.
—Vanessa Taylor, Big Think, 25 Sep. 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 2 Oct. 2025.
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pervasive
adjective
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