How to Use co-opt in a Sentence
co-opt
verb-
Those who spoke up in self-defense were either silenced or co-opted.
—Deborah Bonello, Los Angeles Times, 14 Nov. 2023
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His purpose has been co-opted by other, more bloodthirsty men.
—Proma Khosla, IndieWire, 17 Sep. 2024
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Party lines get twisted over the years, and messages and brands are co-opted by people.
—Tommy Cummings, Dallas News, 3 Aug. 2023
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These women have no business trying to co-opt the bridal couple’s wedding.
—Abigail Van Buren, Mercury News, 31 Aug. 2026
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At home, that means repressing minorities and co-opting the press.
—Daniel Block, The Atlantic, 30 Nov. 2024
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These people are co-opting a movement that was created by and for fat people.
—Stephanie Yeboah, refinery29.com, 12 July 2024
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The event was co-opted as a starring vehicle for the president with acolytes as co-stars.
—Christine Ledbetter, Chicago Tribune, 4 Jan. 2026
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Chumbawamba is no stranger to politicians co-opting its music.
—Dhruv Tikekar, CNN, 4 Apr. 2024
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Of late, the tourist haven has been co-opted as yet another place for New York fans to cheer.
—ABC News, 13 June 2026
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Luckily, the saga has also been co-opted for a bit of Christmas cheer.
—Max Goldbart, Deadline, 12 Dec. 2025
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So the method here is to co-opt the hysterical semiotics of alt-righters for sickle supremacy.
—Kieran Press-Reynolds, Pitchfork, 24 Oct. 2025
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Every second counts for skimo racers, and a skimo pack lets us mortals co-opt some of that need for speed.
—Anthony Walsh, Outside, 26 Feb. 2026
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Their biggest concern was about having a hearing person sort of co-opt this and tell this (story).
—Addie Morfoot, Variety, 16 May 2025
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It's been co-opted from Black culture and turned into a stand-in for various slurs.
—Fifth & Mission Podcast, San Francisco Chronicle, 17 Mar. 2023
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But their fury was too easily co-opted by the few who want to wantonly destroy and used the cover of protest to do so.
—Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 9 June 2025
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But perhaps most concerning is how these pouches have co-opted the health halo once shrouding vapes.
—Erica Sloan, SELF, 1 July 2025
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But modern extremists have co-opted them to invoke a new war on Muslims.
—Ali Breland, The Atlantic, 1 May 2025
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Not to re-establish order over unruly creative children, but to co-opt their success.
—Paul Fischer, HollywoodReporter, 13 Feb. 2026
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Both then and now, Nashville’s Music Row tried to co-opt the folk-stomp movement to their own ends.
—Jonathan Bernstein, Rolling Stone, 24 Mar. 2025
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But invariably, these calls are co-opted by conservatives to demonize those on the short end of the stick.
—Literary Hub, 30 Mar. 2026
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There are also some social movements that have been co-opted by allies who have steered the movement away from its original goals.
—Preeti Vani, Fortune, 4 Apr. 2024
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But that revolution was co-opted by a dictatorship, as well.
—Literary Hub, 9 Oct. 2025
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The same sort of efforts to co-opt far-right talking points have been happening across Europe, analysts said.
—Loveday Morris, Washington Post, 25 Nov. 2023
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There is also the history of Black culture and music being co-opted.
—A.d. Carson, Scientific American, 4 Sep. 2024
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Which is clearly a metaphor for some sort of childhood trauma the filmmaker’s processing which co-opted his parental bonds as a young child.
—Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Vulture, 1 Dec. 2025
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Allow me to co-opt the lyrics of a viral TikTok song, because … what the Hellion?
—Jennifer Zhan, Vulture, 17 May 2025
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Critics argue that far from protecting the dignity of the monarch, the law has been co-opted to silence all dissent.
—Charlie Campbell, Time, 26 June 2025
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Hot springs are usually free in both spirit and actual cost (unless the spring has been co-opted by a fancy resort).
—Joe Jackson, Outside Online, 1 June 2018
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Empowerment is not the right descriptor for these songs—co-opted as the word has been by girlbosses galore.
—Laia Garcia-Furtado, Vogue, 19 Feb. 2024
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In Eddington, Joe co-opts the righteous anger of BLM.
—Robert Daniels, Time, 10 Oct. 2025
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'co-opt.' 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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