How to Use dignify in a Sentence

dignify

verb
  • She felt that formal clothing would help dignify the occasion.
  • He said he wouldn't dignify his opponents' accusations by responding to them.
  • Karloff glides through the film with his sage presence, dignifying the air around him.
    Hazlitt, 6 Sep. 2023
  • Wade brought her distress over the situation to her therapist, got off social media and refused to dignify the rumors.
    Jewly Hight, Los Angeles Times, 23 Aug. 2023
  • During the peace process, the Guatemalan government wanted to dignify the memory of those killed by the state.
    Laura Klairmont, CNN, 17 Mar. 2023
  • The idea is to dignify our culture and make people feel proud of our mexicanidad.
    Griselda Flores, Billboard, 25 Aug. 2022
  • Who decided—in a very few seconds—the weapon formed against them didn’t dignify a response?
    Roy S. Johnson | Rjohnson@al.com, al, 25 Mar. 2022
  • All of them want Poly to honor and dignify their suffering.
    Eric Lewis, Esquire, 17 Nov. 2016
  • While anyone might feel an urge to push for that fundraiser, Heart of Dinner's team wanted to dignify the man’s wishes.
    Karissa Chen, Bon Appétit, 31 May 2022
  • As for Dolly Parton, there have been rumors over the years of encounters in which she was told about the bridge and declined to dignify the news with a response.
    al.com, 30 June 2019
  • The campaign wouldn’t dignify it with a proper statement.
    Philip Elliott, Time, 31 Aug. 2019
  • Slaughter was always searching in those days for ways to dignify the title and elevate the women who won it.
    Amy Argetsinger, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Dec. 2021
  • There’s something very dignifying in his fright and his emotions.
    Vulture, 24 May 2023
  • Then there’s the randomness of life: how a ton of bad stuff happens to some of us, even the nicest and most innocent of us, while some blithely skate on to as dignified a death as a death ever can be.
    Chris Jones, chicagotribune.com, 15 Sep. 2019
  • The story doesn't deserve to be dignified by being broadcast and displayed.
    Fox News, 26 Mar. 2018
  • And David, once dignified with the Turkish honorific effendi, would die in Auschwitz with much of his family in 1943.
    The Economist, 2 Jan. 2020
  • The news is expected to be broken in a careful, somber manner, with hosts wearing black to dignify the importance of what has happened.
    Claire Parker, Washington Post, 8 Sep. 2022
  • The clothes are formal, dignified, structured, rule-bound, but also nuanced.
    Robin Givhan, chicagotribune.com, 4 Mar. 2018
  • Dionne cannot even dignify a response to Ms. Franklin’s perplexing and ridiculous statement.
    Hilary Weaver, Vanities, 26 Apr. 2017
  • Who wanted to dignify such dumb scenarios with sober analyses?
    Jennifer Szalai, New York Times, 3 Jan. 2022
  • The inequality between the men — Rick lives in a spacious ranch house up in the hills, Cliff in a cluttered trailer down in the valley — is what dignifies their bond, just as the contrast of their temperaments sustain it.
    New York Times, 24 July 2019
  • These movies didn’t deserve him, but Khan dignified them with his presence, refusing to sink with the flimsy material he was given.
    Mayukh Sen, The Atlantic, 30 Apr. 2020
  • Dignified paying customers who are there to support the business are offended by the lack of discipline some children are allowed to display.
    Abigail Van Buren, Twin Cities, 13 Mar. 2017
  • Daddy Bill’s life pointed me to the Jesus who not only notices these precious people, but stops everything in order to move towards them, serve them and dignify them.
    Boz Tchividjian, Washington Post, 21 Feb. 2018
  • Yet the politicians who dignify it with specious arguments are making fools of themselves and harming America.
    The Economist, 1 Mar. 2018
  • So far, the bill dignifies vertebrates, decapod crustaceans (crabs and lobsters), and cephalopods (squids and octopuses), but not a single conscious bee.
    Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 21 Aug. 2023
  • But at a time when too many filmmakers still mistake message-mongering for art, a picture that quietly dignifies the medium is more than sufficient for me.
    Justin Chang, latimes.com, 30 Mar. 2018
  • The president is incredibly smart, not dignify this dinner with his presence.
    Fox News, 1 May 2018
  • But at a moment when democracy itself is under assault, Mr. Youngkin chose to dignify a fundamental fiction that is subverting our system, rather than stand up squarely for the truth.
    Fox News, 5 July 2022
  • Advisers were encouraging Trump to not dignify Romney's vote with a response, and there were no immediate plans to campaign against Romney.
    Josh Dawsey, Anchorage Daily News, 6 Feb. 2020

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