dog-eat-dog

adjective

Definition of dog-eat-dognext
as in opportunistic

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of dog-eat-dog Rhyme schemes become secondary to dog-eat-dog dogma. — Pitchfork, 10 Dec. 2025 Stability and predictability would be the exception, not the norm, in a dog-eat-dog world. — Alexander Stubb, Foreign Affairs, 2 Dec. 2025 Joy radiates in the room, and a dog-eat-dog environment where people cut each other off is replaced by open collaboration. — Barry Levitt, Time, 19 Sep. 2025 Each episode is built around a tense, dog-eat-dog hunt, where each player becomes either a Predator or Prey. — Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 2 July 2025 See All Example Sentences for dog-eat-dog
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dog-eat-dog
  1. opportunistic
  2. corrupt
  3. depraved
  4. degenerate
  5. debased
  6. debauched
  7. profligate
  8. demoralized
Adjective
  • According to Professor Jones, the tapestry gives us not just a story of a proud, self-regarding, opportunistic man (Harold) who overstretches himself.
    — Mark Rice-Oxley, Christian Science Monitor, 4 Sep. 2026
  • Wasserman Schultz’s decision to run in the historically Black 20th Congressional District was selfish and opportunistic carpetbagging, a devastating usurpation of power from Black Floridians.
    — Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 31 Aug. 2026
Definition of opportunistic
Adjective
  • Fascism and communism are political systems designed to benefit society’s most inadequate and corrupt.
    — Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 7 Sep. 2026
  • This is the most corrupt administration in the history of America, and what corruption really is is stealing from my constituents.
    — CBS News, CBS News, 6 Sep. 2026
Definition of corrupt
Adjective
  • Chad Powers season 2 Season one, which spun an Eli Manning gimmick video into a sports comedy with Glen Powell as a disgraced college-football star, started to veer in a fascinating, somewhat depraved direction.
    — Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 4 Sep. 2026
  • In the mid-1970s, Slash’s mother, the costume designer Ola Hudson, worked on the American production of The Rocky Horror Show, whose Frank-N-Furter is the unmistakable touchstone of Bourzgui’s David, down to the depraved purr.
    — Sarah Grant, Rolling Stone, 14 Aug. 2026
Definition of depraved
Adjective
  • When the discs degenerate, vertebrae lose the spongy buffer between bones, resulting in pain.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 19 Aug. 2026
  • Or when some man behaving like a degenerate gambler plods into Chelsea Gray’s DMs with a disgusting slur.
    — Candace Buckner, New York Times, 27 July 2026
Definition of degenerate
Adjective
  • That wasn’t its only subject; comedy and power and misogyny and creativity and intergenerational conflict and work ethic and, especially in its last few seasons, the debased state of the entertainment industry were all richly explored through lines.
    — Judy Berman, Time, 8 July 2026
  • And this has lent Margot a debased sort of celebrity.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 6 Apr. 2026
Definition of debased
Adjective
  • For his story was a record of his most debauched thoughts and desires.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 12 Aug. 2026
  • His dissolute, debauched lifestyle was due for a reckoning and could have sunk into tropes of the season’s theme.
    — Jennifer Maas, Variety, 10 June 2026
Definition of debauched
Adjective
  • This shift occasioned the profligate production that would mark her oeuvre, with Kusama going on to make hundreds of paintings in which forests of lines and dots cradled variously floral and phallic figures.
    — News Desk, Artforum, 27 Aug. 2026
  • Just as life in industrial urban centers in the nineteenth century caused hardship in rural villages, the profligate lifestyles enjoyed by those of us in the Global North are underwritten by the immiseration of those in the Global South.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 23 July 2026
Definition of profligate
Adjective
  • Despite being outnumbered and outmaneuvered, Washington maintained order among his demoralized troops.
    — Christopher Magra, The Conversation, 10 Feb. 2026
  • The Democratic Party has funneled all the fury of its demoralized and humiliated voter base into a focal point centered on immigration policy.
    — Torrey Snow, Baltimore Sun, 21 Jan. 2026
Definition of demoralized

Browse Nearby Words

dog-eared
dog-eat-dog
dogface
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Cite this Entry

“Dog-eat-dog.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dog-eat-dog. Accessed 11 Sep. 2026.

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