How to Use hector in a Sentence

hector

verb
  • The judge ordered the attorney to stop hectoring the witness.
  • But wordplay isn't play play, and so Mom hectors me to go see if Kevin Sundem is home.
    Steve Rushin, SI.com, 21 June 2017
  • When Trump left, the cadre held up signs, waved pictures and hectored him over the child separation policy.
    Chad Pergram, Fox News, 21 June 2018
  • In fact, a lot of Democrats overplayed their hand by hectoring and interrupting.
    Fox News, 16 July 2018
  • But this wasn’t a dry matter of people with clipboards hectoring passersby.
    Rob Walker, Bloomberg.com, 21 Sep. 2017
  • Those who resist this system are committed to an asylum, or, worse, hectored by their parents to get a real job.
    Alex Baia thatcher Jensen, The New Yorker, 7 June 2019
  • He was brought down, in part, by his inability to resist hectoring others on how to behave.
    Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 26 Apr. 2018
  • As long as Sutter’s voice doesn’t have the strident, hectoring tone that turned Kings players against him late in his tenure, this could be fascinating.
    Los Angeles Times, 3 Oct. 2019
  • One character even gets to rise from the dead long enough to both forgive and hector her frenemies, rivals and even her remorseful parents.
    Hank Stuever, Washington Post, 11 June 2019
  • Casie Baker, 29, a bank worker, said her family prodded and cajoled and hectored each other until the voting was done.
    Richard Fausset and Campbell Robertson, New York Times, 13 Dec. 2017
  • Wolf’s third level here was a nasty jab, likening Huckabee Sanders to the homophobic cliché of the female softball coach: a mannish, hectoring bully.
    Rhonda Garelick, The Cut, 30 Apr. 2018
  • Scored for a 16-piece band that often sounds as if ballooned into something 10 times its size, the music hectored the audience persistently, often at odds with the contours of the vocal lines.
    Ricahrd S. Ginell, latimes.com, 19 Mar. 2018
  • At the center of all the talk was Melissa Leo’s performance as a cruel, hectoring Mother Superior.
    Richard Lawson, VanityFair.com, 30 Jan. 2017
  • But life at a high-desert elevation has given them the endurance to compete, and once Mendoza’s hectoring sinks in, the book becomes a gripping, propulsive story about a playoff run.
    Mark Athitakis, Washington Post, 22 Nov. 2019
  • For nine days in Europe and the Middle East, Trump shoved, hectored and lectured, betraying confidences and demonstrating an ignorance of world affairs.
    Dana Milbank, chicagotribune.com, 3 June 2017
  • In another turnabout, the central government has stopped hectoring city halls to restrain spending and instead has urged them to speed up investment projects.
    Lingling Wei, WSJ, 20 Jan. 2019
  • Winter is coming for criticism, too, we’re regularly told, with warnings about its eclipse trailed by hectoring about the role of the critic (by the critic), about the need for her wisdom and authority.
    Parul Sehgal, The New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2023
  • The open display of raw tensions was remarkable even by the standards of a state Legislature where committee chairs routinely hector members of the public and their colleagues.
    Andrew Oxford, The Arizona Republic, 24 Mar. 2021
  • In exchange, Trump abandoned what the Arabs considered Obama’s hectoring over human rights and democracy and perceived tilt toward Iran.
    Karen Deyoung, Washington Post, 26 May 2017
  • His parents hectored Colorado lawmakers and filed complaints with both the hospital and various state agencies.
    Shefali Luthra, Washington Post, 9 May 2018
  • His only previous encounter with the police had come while hitchhiking in his service uniform; a state trooper had given him a hectoring lecture on the danger of taking rides from strangers.
    Edward Conlon, Esquire, 21 Mar. 2017
  • The President didn't hector or condemn vaccine skeptics, but instead played on their heart strings, appealing to their desire to protect family, friends and country, warning that those who skipped the shot remained at great risk.
    Stephen Collinson, CNN, 7 July 2021
  • Critics of the big technology companies have refrained from hectoring users to quit social media.
    New York Times, 13 June 2018
  • The messages varied in tone—hectoring, aggressive, snide, pathetic, lovesick.
    Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, 12 June 2023
  • President Trump has been hectoring the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, and financial markets are screaming for a cut.
    Don Lee, latimes.com, 18 June 2019
  • Both women know that forceful men are all often described as strong and assertive, while forceful women are dismissed as angry, emasculating or hectoring.
    Charlotte Alter, Time, 21 Nov. 2019
  • Jackson even showed up at the festivities from time to time, scandalizing the political sensibilities of the day every bit as much as Trump’s hectoring campaign screeds have.
    Kevin Baker, New Republic, 13 June 2017
  • In a turnabout, the State Council, China’s cabinet, stopped hectoring city halls and townships to restrain spending and instead last week launched an inspection to urge them to speed up already approved investment projects to re-energize growth.
    Tory Newmyer, Washington Post, 13 July 2018
  • Another is verbal, consisting of a notably didactic and hectoring wall text.
    Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 3 May 2023
  • Only a civilization addicted to frivolity and hectored by self-hating intellectuals — that is, ours — could have let the giant step go unfollowed so long or think so fleetingly of it now.
    Nr Editors, National Review, 25 July 2019

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