How to Use rhetorical in a Sentence
rhetorical
adjective- My question was rhetorical. I wasn't really expecting an answer.
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The two are neck and neck in a race to the rhetorical middle.
—Faith Bottum, WSJ, 26 Sep. 2022
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Some on the right saw right through the rhetorical trick.
—Brian Stelter, CNN, 25 Mar. 2025
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Downes asks at one point, and the question is meant to be rhetorical.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 13 Oct. 2023
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For the most part, Mr. Trump’s blasts at the news media have been rhetorical.
—Peter Baker and Sydney Ember, New York Times, 11 Dec. 2017
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For a while the threat to the survival of the agreement looked more rhetorical than real.
—The Economist, 28 Mar. 2018
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Many of us are getting stuck in the same rhetorical cul-de-sacs.
—W. Kamau Bell, CNN, 2 May 2021
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Dougherty has become a star of the strike for her blunt rhetorical style.
—Gene Maddaus, Variety, 27 May 2023
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Some of those threats were intended to be rhetorical, at least in the short run.
—Washington Post, 13 June 2019
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Trump has declared rhetorical war on the NFL over the issue.
—Z. Byron Wolf, CNN, 8 June 2018
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In Wolfish, the question is dropped like a generic, rhetorical call to action, and then Berry moves on.
—Colin Dickey, The New Republic, 31 Mar. 2023
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The best part about it, though, is that the complaints are required to be rhetorical, Curvey says.
—BostonGlobe.com, 9 June 2021
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For now, at least, Locsin doesn’t feel obliged to hold his rhetorical fire.
—Joel Gehrke, Washington Examiner, 3 May 2021
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To argue on this rhetorical ground is to disable the argument from the start.
—Merve Emre, The New Yorker, 11 July 2023
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Both sides have dug in, and both have turned to lessons of the 1994 ban for rhetorical ammunition.
—Kevin Diaz, San Antonio Express-News, 25 Feb. 2018
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The shift is mainly rhetorical, and action may yet be some way off.
—Richard Barley, WSJ, 28 June 2017
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To answer the rhetorical question, the answer is no, no there isn't.
—Shelby Stewart, Houston Chronicle, 4 Aug. 2020
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As Mueller spoke, politicos and others sought the rhetorical upper hand on what to make of it all.
—Ronald J. Hansen, azcentral, 24 July 2019
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Schaake’s speech was a hairpin turn in rhetorical space.
—Nick Romeo, The New Yorker, 18 Aug. 2020
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Much more typical is the rhetorical switcheroo played by the court in Ziglar v. Abbasi last term.
—Garrett Epps, The Atlantic, 27 Aug. 2017
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There is more than a kernel of truth in this rhetorical excess.
—Tom Simonite, WIRED, 10 June 2019
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All of which means that, in the clash of rhetorical language and the technical kind, the rhetoric may turn out to be more important.
—The Economist, 12 Dec. 2019
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But what about Netanyahu, a man in thrall to the hard right and not exactly known for rhetorical restraint?
—Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic, 21 Jan. 2024
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Apples in a barrel for the Dems, the lie that Vance and Trump have been spinning quickly got lost in the rhetorical shuffle.
—Ted Johnson, Deadline, 1 Oct. 2024
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In Bannon’s rhetorical paradigm, the struggle for the soul of the GOP boils down to good versus evil.
—Olivia Nuzzi, Daily Intelligencer, 26 Oct. 2017
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For many, the question of whether screening Rust was even a good idea stands purely rhetorical.
—Nick Newman, Vulture, 20 Nov. 2024
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Maybe rhetorical war is just as worthless as the real deal.
—Drew Magary, GQ, 23 May 2018
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Then Freud makes one of the sly rhetorical turns by which his work is marked and that give it its special potency.
—Janet Malcolm, The New York Review of Books, 24 Mar. 2020
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However, that evolution remains more rhetorical than structural, at least for now.
—Kaelan Deese, The Washington Examiner, 4 June 2025
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That left Johnson blindsided by the billionaire’s rhetorical barrage on Tuesday.
—Niall Stanage, The Hill, 3 June 2025
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rhetorical.' 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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