How to Use denominator in a Sentence

denominator

noun
  • In the fraction 2/3 the numerator is 2 and the denominator is 3.
  • When the denominator goes up, the value of the stock goes down.
    John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 14 May 2022
  • But the Facebook top 10 list gives no sense of the denominator.
    Siva Vaidhyanathan, The New Republic, 5 Jan. 2021
  • The ball is the only common denominator with all the shots.
    Mark Whicker, Orange County Register, 18 Jan. 2017
  • For too long, the system has been pulled down to the lowest denominator.
    Letter Writers, Twin Cities, 15 Feb. 2017
  • A common denominator in the three hubs is that countries on these coasts have failed to make the areas safe.
    Francois Vreÿ, CNN, 30 May 2017
  • The question is: With a denominator that big, what’s the role of charity?
    Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic, 25 Oct. 2017
  • As the mass of block B goes to zero, the denominator goes to a very large number which makes the tension almost zero.
    Rhett Allain, Wired, 25 Jan. 2021
  • On the right side of the equation, F-pull is in Newtons and the denominator is unitless (mass divided by mass).
    Rhett Allain, Wired, 25 Jan. 2021
  • That means that the denominator of that fraction gets smaller and makes the energy very large.
    Rhett Allain, Wired, 2 Apr. 2021
  • The common denominator is that kids from this state wanted to be Buckeyes, and came here with a purpose.
    Bill Landis, cleveland.com, 19 June 2017
  • There is also the denominator of returns: how much equity the firm has to hold.
    Telis Demos, WSJ, 15 Oct. 2021
  • As long as the angle is between 0 and 90 degrees, the stuff in the denominator will be bigger than just μs such that the force will be smaller at an angle.
    Rhett Allain, WIRED, 11 June 2018
  • The one in the magnetic field equation is in the numerator, and there was already one in the denominator.
    Rhett Allain, WIRED, 14 Mar. 2023
  • Curtis Taylor's first four starts for the Cougars were losses, and the common denominator was walks.
    Paul Johnson, Naperville Sun, 18 June 2017
  • As the workforce grows, the denominator increases so that the ratio goes down.
    Liya Palagashvili, WSJ, 12 June 2018
  • Accept that the common denominator to all of life’s problems is you.
    AJC.com, 27 Dec. 2016
  • About 40% of the African population is below 15, so the change in denominator will lead to a large jump in the coverage figures.
    Annalisa Merelli, Quartz, 28 Dec. 2022
  • In this case, each doll is an integer added to a fraction whose denominator is the next smallest figurine in the sequence.
    Amory Tillinghast-Raby, Scientific American, 2 June 2023
  • But once again, it's swelled by a denominator of super-pumped profits.
    Shawn Tully, Fortune, 1 June 2022
  • The denominator for the players’ rate is the total number of players tested.
    Wire Services, Star Tribune, 27 Oct. 2020
  • That comes out to a debt-to-GDP ratio where the numerator is growing faster and the denominator is growing slower.
    The Editors, National Review, 24 Oct. 2023
  • The one common denominator in her order at each restaurant is poultry—but don’t even think about going for the breaded stuff.
    Shay Spence, PEOPLE.com, 22 May 2017
  • Think of the internal content as the numerator of the equation, and the market context as the denominator.
    Isaac Cheifetz, Star Tribune, 21 Nov. 2020
  • The Point: This is the sort of gross, lowest-common-denominator politics that drive people away from public life.
    Chris Cillizza, CNN, 19 Aug. 2021
  • Planting under big trees While the sun or shade needs of your hydrangea will vary based on its type, one denominator remains pretty much the same: Don’t plant under big trees.
    Southern Living Editors, Southern Living, 4 May 2020
  • Specifically, the error of each fraction is no more than 1 divided by the square of the denominator.
    Wired, 18 Aug. 2019
  • The wants are the denominator of the satisfaction equation.
    Stephen Humphries, The Christian Science Monitor, 1 Apr. 2022
  • But in this global crisis, both the numerator and the denominator are fuzzy.
    Anchorage Daily News, 17 Apr. 2020
  • As capacity is reduced, the denominator (seats x miles) both go down because the airline is flying fewer flights.
    Ben Baldanza, Forbes, 23 May 2022

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