How to Use pernicious in a Sentence

pernicious

adjective
  • More pernicious still has been the acceptance of the author's controversial ideas by the general public.
  • She thinks television has a pernicious influence on our children.
  • Some of those forms are even more pernicious than the old forms.
    New York Times, 4 May 2018
  • Of all the circumstances in this case, that may be the most pernicious.
    Lucien Bruggeman, ABC News, 21 Feb. 2020
  • This leads to the most pernicious effect of the argument.
    John Ryder, WSJ, 2 Oct. 2017
  • Such a frame of mind is pernicious for the future of both our nations.
    Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, National Review, 17 Nov. 2020
  • For most of us, our most pernicious villain is our self.
    Marisha Pessl, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2017
  • Many of the series' most pernicious bugbears have been dumped.
    Daniel Starkey, Ars Technica, 28 Oct. 2017
  • But in some ways, the effects of these glowing bedmates seem to be a bit more pernicious.
    Brian Fagan, The Conversation, 13 Sep. 2019
  • The third, and perhaps most pernicious, myth is that nothing can be done about it.
    The Economist, 17 Oct. 2019
  • But there is a long and pernicious history in the South that cannot be ignored.
    ELLE, 11 Oct. 2022
  • Of all the health myths in the world, the idea that there is a silver bullet for weight loss may be among the most persistent and pernicious.
    Korin Miller, SELF, 2 Jan. 2019
  • But that very fact is one of the reasons why conflicts of interest are so pernicious.
    Frida Ghitis, CNN, 19 May 2017
  • It was designed to be more resistant to one of the most pernicious diseases in the fruit world — apple scab.
    Connie Nelson, Star Tribune, 17 Feb. 2021
  • And that’s the pernicious problem of having so many teams tanking in baseball.
    Dave Hyde, Sun-Sentinel.com, 14 Apr. 2018
  • More pernicious is the fact that so few people realize that this could be a problem.
    Michael Waters, Wired, 31 Mar. 2020
  • But the show has been especially pernicious for the queen herself.
    Dan Barna, Glamour, 25 Sep. 2018
  • The former threat seems easier to spot, but the two are equally pernicious.
    John Bolton, WSJ, 13 Apr. 2021
  • Smith figured that a person could outwit the pernicious forces of modern life.
    James Vlahos, GQ, 18 Apr. 2018
  • To his credit, Rhodes does not pretend to have all of the answers about how to stop such pernicious trends.
    Washington Post, 11 June 2021
  • It has been called the new Jim Crow because of these pernicious effects.
    Indianapolis Star, The Indianapolis Star, 17 June 2020
  • But the most pernicious forms of the disease are the kind exhibited by Ditka.
    Author: Mary Schmich, Alaska Dispatch News, 13 Oct. 2017
  • The study highlights just how pernicious this metal can be, even at low levels.
    chicagotribune.com, 19 July 2021
  • Owens for being a pernicious influence in the locker room.
    Jason Gay, WSJ, 26 July 2018
  • The notion that people have a right not to be offended is also pernicious.
    The Economist, 15 Aug. 2019
  • Some of the most pernicious monthly charges are from apps and free-trials that people forget to cancel or pause.
    Amber Burton, WSJ, 31 Dec. 2020
  • That tells you how pernicious these theories are and how their spread is so dangerous.
    Danielle Wallace, Fox News, 20 Jan. 2022
  • How close to the pernicious doctrine of the blue-eyed Aryan ideal of humanity?
    Henry Louis Gates Jr., The New York Review of Books, 21 Mar. 2019
  • But this latest variant of the virus is so pernicious, even the folks who are following all the rules could be transmitters.
    Washington Post, 27 Sep. 2021
  • The trend the term so imperfectly describes is real and pernicious.
    Damon Linker, The Week, 15 June 2021

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