How to Use sanctimonious in a Sentence

sanctimonious

adjective

• But power can be misused as much in the hands of the sanctimonious as the corrupt.
  — Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 7 Sep. 2017
• The villains of his films are always the most sanctimonious players with the loudest moral outrage, on both the left and the right.
  — Matthew Marden., Town & Country, 20 Sep. 2021
• Sports writing scolds come off as sanctimonious at best.
  — Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 7 June 2021
• That is not to suggest the novel is a catalog of horrors or a sanctimonious lecture.
  — Rumaan Alam, The New Republic, 13 Mar. 2020
• The hypocrisy of these sanctimonious liberals is just amazing.
  — Fox News Staff, Fox News, 16 Sep. 2022
• But don’t think for a second that he and his powerful, often sanctimonious team are going to roll over and accept a ban.
  — Juliet MacUr, New York Times, 13 Dec. 2017
• If that’s not your first concern — if your moral high ground is colored by love of a rival or sanctimonious hypocrisy — let’s pipe down.
  — Graham Couch, Detroit Free Press, 21 Oct. 2017
• His sense of duty yields an effortful and sanctimonious movie that, at the same time, takes its place in a lamentable recent trend.
  — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 7 Jan. 2020
• The longstanding, sanctimonious network guideline of not showing yahoos running on the field should end.
  — Marc Bona, cleveland, 8 Feb. 2021
• Some, especially in the western parts of the country, have long seen him as too showy and sanctimonious, an elitist do-gooder who was never up to the job.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 20 Sep. 2019
• There is nothing reminiscent here of the haughty and sanctimonious Thoreau who is folded into the pages of Walden.
  — Andrea Wulf, The Atlantic, 6 Oct. 2017
• Why not take the more interesting (if challenging) route of explaining how the best films of the past surpass today’s sanctimonious films?
  — Armond White, National Review, 31 Mar. 2021
• Gawker abhors the sanctimonious, the indignant, the self-righteous and the needlessly cruel.
  — Todd Spangler, Variety, 1 Feb. 2023
• My desire for friends outweighed my duty to uphold the sanctimonious culinary standards of my parents’ homeland.
  — Carla Ciccone, Bon Appetit, 7 May 2018
• In keeping with the car's brutal new persona, the replacement chip promises a much less sanctimonious attitude.
  — Barry Winfield, WIRED, 1 May 1994
• There is something vicariously thrilling about the idea of taking down this cruel, sanctimonious man.
  — Meredith Blakestaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 26 Aug. 2022
• The campus Hillel chapter should have dismissed the apology as a stunt, sanctimonious and empty.
  — WSJ, 25 Oct. 2022
• No sanctimonious emphasis is required to note the irony of that message coming from a family for whom nepotism is as natural as breathing.
  — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 May 2022
• Trump's in-your-face lying and hucksterism is almost preferable to the sanctimonious sycophancy of Pence.
  — Peter Bergen, CNN, 6 Mar. 2022
• One of the things that history is good for is puncturing our sanctimonious self-satisfaction about our own moral rectitude.
  — David Marchese, New York Times, 31 May 2021
• True believers and sanctimonious hypocrites alike decried the outsize influence movies had on the young and impressionable.
  — Nancie Clare, Los Angeles Magazine, 20 Feb. 2018
• He's become a favorite target of mine for his sneeringly sanctimonious droppings.
  — Keith Kloor, Discover Magazine, 26 July 2011
• Leaders should deliver the message without sounding sanctimonious so everyone hears it and doesn’t tune out.
  — Mark Roberts, Forbes, 6 July 2021
• The bravado was measured, the confidence present without being stifling or sanctimonious.
  — Alan Blinder, New York Times, 16 May 2023
• My Mom Died, has inspired sanctimonious comments on Goodreads and beyond, as well as praise for its brash sense of bravery.
  — Michelle Ruiz, Vogue, 18 Aug. 2022
• To the contrary, the sanctimonious act upholds the carceral logic of exclusion and reinforces dominant structures of power.
  — WIRED, 26 Aug. 2022
• Most yawn that Mark Zuckerberg and Pope Francis have given one too many sanctimonious rants that project their own hypocrisies.
  — Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 26 Sep. 2017
• But not everyone believes the military is something Trump, of all people, should be sanctimonious about.
  — Isobel Thompson, vanityfair.com, 23 Oct. 2017
• Most of the ceremonies feature flickers of genuine emotion amid hours of sanctimonious, self-serving or scolding speeches.
  — Brenda Cronin, WSJ, 22 Mar. 2022
• But the good news is, this kind of embarrassment isn’t nearly enough to shake the Fighting Irish’s sanctimonious arrogance.
  — Steve Rosenbloom, chicagotribune.com, 1 May 2017

Last Updated: 10 Apr 2024