1
as in moralizing
marked by or given to preaching moral values
a sententious crank who has written countless letters to the editor about the decline in family values
Synonyms & Similar Words
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2
as in concise
marked by the use of few words to convey much information or meaning
memoirs that are filled with sententious observations on love, marriage, and happiness
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
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Recent Examples of sententious
This conclusion will shock anyone who knows Twain only through his writing, in which the author is wise and witty and, above all, devastating in his portrayal of frauds, cretins, and sententious bores.
—
Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 9 May 2025
Audiences have no choice but to exist in the theatrical moment, without recourse to linear logic, sententious language or psychological epiphanies.
—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2025
This is a bracing, even novel, perspective on a war whose film depictions so often traffic in sententious Greatest Generation platitudes.
—Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 25 Oct. 2024
Without the wit inherent in an epigram, a sententious formulation becomes a mere adage, aphorism, apothegm, gnome, maxim, or saw.
—Bryan A. Garner, National Review, 15 Sep. 2022
Instead each event—from lethal accidents to vicious murders to Category 5 hurricanes—is immediately sorted into its prelabeled moral narrative file, each one full of similarly useful sententious parables.
—Gerard Baker, WSJ, 30 May 2022
Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 9 May 2025
Audiences have no choice but to exist in the theatrical moment, without recourse to linear logic, sententious language or psychological epiphanies.
—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2025
This is a bracing, even novel, perspective on a war whose film depictions so often traffic in sententious Greatest Generation platitudes.
—Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 25 Oct. 2024
Without the wit inherent in an epigram, a sententious formulation becomes a mere adage, aphorism, apothegm, gnome, maxim, or saw.
—Bryan A. Garner, National Review, 15 Sep. 2022
Instead each event—from lethal accidents to vicious murders to Category 5 hurricanes—is immediately sorted into its prelabeled moral narrative file, each one full of similarly useful sententious parables.
—Gerard Baker, WSJ, 30 May 2022
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sententious
Adjective
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Most of the roughly 200 episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger have the moralizing flavor of after-school specials, albeit weirdly violent ones.—
Chris Klimek,
The Atlantic,
23 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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Third, the tool helps design a concise, high-value one-page lead magnet to effectively capture email addresses.—
Jodie Cook,
Forbes.com,
27 May 2026
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Get concise answers to your questions.—
Dan Lamothe,
Washington Post,
26 May 2026
Adjective
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After a brief trip to the locker room, Brunson quickly returned to the bench and eventually re-entered the game.—
Alejandro Avila,
FOXNews.com,
4 June 2026
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The fact that no player had posted a tribute to the outgoing coach had raised some eyebrows until Van Dijk posted his own brief missive on social media.—
Simon Hughes,
New York Times,
3 June 2026
Adjective
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Yet Dupieux doesn’t stage any of this in a didactic or judgmental way.—
Owen Gleiberman,
Variety,
18 May 2026
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That’s also in part a function of Paglen’s practice itself, which has long been critiqued for its didactic bent.—
Louis Bury,
ARTnews.com,
1 May 2026
Adjective
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The judge considered hundreds of pages of evidence and testimony from San Diego officials, homeowners and their lawyers and determined that the city had not met the burden for what is called summary adjudication in any of the five causes of actions.—
Jeff McDonald,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
9 Apr. 2026
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Such rights obviously do not include summary execution at sea.—
Mary Ellen O'Connell,
The Conversation,
4 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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The most instructive parallel to today’s AI boom may be the railroad construction boom of the 1870s and 1880s.—
Fortune,
Fortune,
2 June 2026
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The political economy of Michigan provides an instructive explanation.—
Andrew Cockburn,
Harpers Magazine,
2 June 2026
Adjective
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Last year, a YouTube channel called Akhbar Enfejari (Explosive News) began posting a variety of digital content with a political and moralistic bent.—
Kyle Chayka,
New Yorker,
2 Apr. 2026
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Good intentions — and handsome animation — aside, Forevergreen is ultimately too maudlin and moralistic to rank it much higher than this.—
Joe Reid,
Vulture,
10 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Sententious.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sententious. Accessed 4 Jun. 2026.
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