How to Use determinative in a Sentence

determinative

adjective

• Over the course of the next few days will be determinative in terms of our ability to get out of this.
  — Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2019
• But Davis told me the shape and size of your arch is not as determinative as some people think.
  — Laura Lancaster, Outdoor Life, 11 Apr. 2024
• And what happens within the first 48 hours is often determinative as to whether that child is going to be found alive.
  — ABC News, 17 Mar. 2023
• Under Senate rules, a member who is not present cannot cast the determinative vote.
  — Daniella Diaz, CNN, 24 Apr. 2018
• Of course, Romney went on to win the nomination that year, so his gaffe wasn't determinative.
  — Chris Cillizza, CNN, 11 May 2021
• Doesn’t that mean race will be determinative in some cases, Chief Justice Roberts asked.
  — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 31 Oct. 2022
• But oil is traded on a global market in which the U.S. is a major but by no means determinative player.
  — Dominic Pino, National Review, 24 Jan. 2024
• In Middle English, the term referred to the determinative phase of an illness, the point from which one either recovers to health or declines to death.
  — Spencer Strub, The New York Review of Books, 25 Mar. 2020
• Such quirks of the production chain could be determinative.
  — Vernon Silver, Bloomberg.com, 18 Nov. 2020
• The idea here—that film criticism moves audiences at the margin but isn’t determinative—has always been true.
  — Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, 8 Sep. 2017
• While Iowa has not always been determinative in primary contests, most of the field will descend on Des Moines this weekend and next week as the state hosts its annual fair.
  — Naomi Lim, Washington Examiner, 10 Aug. 2023
• While the Jazz certainly could make use of more rangy, switchable, 3-and-D wings, the coming trade deadline will probably be determinative of his future.
  — Eric Walden, The Salt Lake Tribune, 26 Jan. 2022
• McCain’s support for it — to have been the determinative factor in McCain’s defeat.
  — Geoffrey Kabaservice, Washington Post, 16 Oct. 2020
• There is little reason to think that this arrangement had any determinative effect on the outcome of the 2016 primary.
  — Eric Levitz, Daily Intelligencer, 3 Nov. 2017
• Whether Trump expects to see it in there — or would sign something without it — is vitally important, if not determinative.
  — Aaron Blake, Washington Post, 10 Jan. 2018
• But bad sportsmanship is too subjective a concept on which to base a potentially outcome-determinative penalty such as the loss of a game in a tennis match.
  — Alan M. Dershowitz, WSJ, 13 Sep. 2018
• Number one is that, whatever happens in debate number one will not be determinative of the Iowa caucus or the New Hampshire primary.
  — ABC News, 27 Aug. 2023
• No single factor was determinative in an election that brought nearly 140 million Americans to the polls.
  — Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman, New York Times, 18 Feb. 2018
• The process wasn’t determinative — clearly, since Porter (and many others) remained in their positions despite having failed to get clearance approval.
  — Philip Bump, Washington Post, 19 Mar. 2018
• Controls will need to be added on corporate announcements of earnings, mergers, and other determinative financial status reports so that the market is volatile during the day and not in the middle of the night.
  — Phillip Molnar, San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 Dec. 2021
• Many experts today regard the process as less determinative and more dynamic, but there is near-universal agreement that grief is a process, not a one-time, overnight phenomenon.
  — Todd S. Purdum, STAT, 9 Dec. 2020
• Current law permits schools to consider an applicant’s race, but not use it as a determinative factor.
  — Melissa Korn, WSJ, 14 June 2021
• Polling this early is, of course, not determinative: In 2016 Hillary Clinton also enjoyed a wide advantage in many states well before November.
  — Jonathan Martin, New York Times, 25 Apr. 2020
• However, as Democrats learned painfully in 2016 when Hillary Clinton lost Florida, an early vote lead isn’t determinative of the final outcome.
  — Joshua Green, Bloomberg.com, 13 Oct. 2020
• As with age, these views aren't entirely determinative of voter preferences: Among people who fault Biden on this question, 15% support him against Trump anyway.
  — Gary Langer, ABC News, 6 May 2023
• Roy added that recent studies intended to gauge the prevalence of West Nile in grouse ultimately weren’t determinative, because only birds killed by hunters were tested.
  — Star Tribune, 17 Sep. 2020
• Nevada is a state where Hispanic voters' preferences may prove determinative in the swing state's critical races.
  — Allan Smith, NBC News, 22 Aug. 2022
• Opponents will argue, too, that higher state taxes will make rich people flee the state, though there is plenty of evidence that taxes are not determinative in such decisions.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 9 June 2021
• World War II was such a sprawling conflict, and the sites of major determinative battles so numerous, that what transpired in a remote corner of the planet where Allied forces were not massively deployed is easy to overlook.
  — David James, Anchorage Daily News, 12 Sep. 2020
• So, the performance of Border Patrol is the subject of an investigation and the facts that are adduced in that investigation are going to be determinative.
  — NBC News, 26 Sep. 2021

Last Updated: 10 Dec 2024