pander

verb pan·der \ ˈpan-dər \

|Updated on: 3 Jun 2018

Examples: pander in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Distinctive Meanings of procure

Definition of pander

pandered; pandering play \ˈpan-d(ə-)riŋ\

intransitive verb

: to act as a pander; especially : to provide gratification for others' desires

films that pander to the basest emotions

… used his brilliant gifts to pander to popular taste.
—Hubert Saal

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panderer

play \ˈpan-dər-ər\ noun

See pander defined for English-language learners

Recent Examples of pander from the Web

But the story of the couple’s relationship — the tale of a woman who refuses to be dominated, never mind beaten, by her man — gets lost in the audience-pandering burlesque.

— charles mcnulty, latimes.com, "'The Color Purple' national tour turns down the wattage — and burns a little less brightly," 30 May 2018
That's standard rhetoric in Erdogan's Turkey, where the president has built a majoritarian government by pandering to nationalist sentiment and bemoaning foreign plots and conspiracies against the nation.

— ishaan tharoor, Washington Post, "Erdogan’s push for power creates new chaos," 24 May 2018
The cinematography is colorful and striking; the storyline is relevant, but not pandering.

— refinery29.com, "Janelle Monae: How An Outsider Became a Visionary Superstar," 17 May 2018
Trump went heavy on Hoosier hysteria Trump’s speech included plenty of pandering to his audience in the state that gave him the Republican presidential nomination and his vice president.

— maureen groppe, Indianapolis Star, "8 takeaways from Trump's speech at Elkhart rally," 11 May 2018
But some leaders will be tempted to return to UMNO’s methods of control, or to pander to Islamists and Malay nationalists.

— the editorial board, WSJ, "Malaysia’s Democratic Spring," 10 May 2018
This was about pandering to those who have already cast their votes and just want a photo opp to prove it.

— michael hoinski, GQ, "Beto in the Outfield," 19 Apr. 2018
Shouldn’t have gone against Americans with your knee jerk pandering to the gun grabbers.

— alex leary and steve bousquet, miamiherald, "Rick Scott ticked off the NRA after Parkland. That could help him. | Miami Herald," 13 Apr. 2018
In an industry that panders to the male gaze on and off the runway, Stella McCartney's power move is a major win for female designers.

— alyssa hardy, Teen Vogue, "What Stella McCartney Buying Back Her Brand From Kering Means For Fashion," 4 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'pander.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Distinctive Meanings of procure

Procure, like many other English words, has a split personality. On the one hand, it may carry a perfectly benign meaning, such as "to obtain" (“she procured supplies”) or "to bring about" (“the settlement was successfully procured”). On the other hand, it has long been used in the specific sense of obtaining someone for, or bringing about, sexually promiscuous purposes. In this regard it is similar to the word pander, which entered the English language with the innocent meaning “a go-between in love intrigues” (the word comes from the name Pandare, a character in Chaucer’s poem Troilus and Criseyde who facilitates the affair between the titular characters), and soon after took on the meaning “pimp.”