How to Use knee-jerk in a Sentence
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But others saw the bill as a knee-jerk reaction that precludes sustainable change.
— Trisha Mukherjee, ABC News, 3 Sep. 2024 -
But what about the show’s own knee-jerk hatred of the public?
— Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 26 June 2023 -
Ed could tell that Joe knew his knee-jerk reaction to check his phone was the wrong thing to do.
— Phil Blair, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 May 2023 -
One of the hazards of a certain age is the knee-jerk tendency to reminisce on the good ol’ days.
— Kevin Sherrington, Dallas News, 17 Mar. 2023 -
But that does not indicate knee-jerk reactions on the part of Tunisians.
— Michael Robbins, Foreign Affairs, 14 Dec. 2023 -
The knee-jerk response would be to say that nothing has really changed.
— Fidel Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 25 May 2023 -
Since Aries tends to be impatient, an Aries Moon may be prone to knee-jerk reactions.
— Women's Health, 12 May 2023 -
My knee-jerk reaction was to be a curmudgeon and say all of them except high school.
— Sherry Kuehl, Kansas City Star, 22 May 2024 -
In his view, the ban is the culmination of nearly two years of him and his team scrutinizing the app, not some knee-jerk move.
— Sapna Maheshwari, New York Times, 2 Sep. 2023 -
That makes sense from an emotional, knee-jerk standpoint.
— Mark Zeigler, San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 July 2023 -
What happened in the past may no longer apply to what will happen in the future, and you’re still left making knee-jerk decisions and hoping for the best.
— Rhett Power, Forbes, 18 Feb. 2024 -
Students came for zombies but stayed for the chance to learn more about themselves and their knee-jerk reactions to catastrophe, Stutzky said.
— Scottie Andrew, CNN, 13 Mar. 2023 -
So when the pandemic hit, my knee-jerk reaction was to just immerse myself in music and work.
— William E. Ketchum Iii, Billboard, 5 Apr. 2023 -
As knee-jerk reactions to AI faded over the course of the year, new theories cropped up about AI’s trajectory.
— Chloe Berger, Fortune, 25 Mar. 2024 -
None of its leaders have been willing to condemn the Squad and its bigoted allies who are knee-jerk anti-Israel zealots.
— Andrew Stein, New York Daily News, 19 May 2024 -
None of that might stem the knee-jerk opposition to the four-day week among businesses and their water carriers on Capitol Hill.
— Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 21 Mar. 2024 -
Such a knee-jerk response reflects deep ignorance of the art and conflict that Little Richard epitomized.
— Armond White, National Review, 21 Apr. 2023 -
There would be no crying about civilian deaths in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, no knee-jerk second-guessing of the Bush administration.
— Jim Rutenberg, New York Times, 6 Apr. 2023 -
This is often a knee-jerk and unfair assumption as to the manager, who must be loyal to the association, not who runs it at any point in time.
— Kelly G. Richardson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 May 2024 -
But there’s a bit more nuance to what looks like a knee-jerk response to the financial rocket fuel of low interest rates, analysts say.
— Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, 24 Mar. 2024 -
My knee-jerk reaction was to call them sellouts, or deluded, as many progressives would.
— Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2023 -
No decision is made cavalierly or in a knee-jerk manner.
— Mikey O'Connell, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 July 2024 -
Sorry to be a knee-jerk ACAB leftist, but this whole police-brutality side plot isn’t really doing it for me.
— Emma Specter, Vogue, 28 June 2024 -
The most interesting thread of The Cottage involves Rustin’s trying to work against the knee-jerk sexism of the genre as Sylvia slowly discovers that her happiness shouldn’t depend on the men around her.
— Vulture, 24 July 2023 -
Is this sometimes tongue-and-cheek or knee-jerk militancy a disguise for the pursuit of the American dream, which is exported worldwide by way of Black music?
— Harmony Holiday, Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2023 -
The term is derisive and refers to local people who have a negative knee-jerk reaction to any project near their community.
— Justin Worland, TIME, 23 Oct. 2023 -
And, for anyone who has a knee-jerk reaction of assuming that means everyone should be exactly the same, no, of course not, as that is never possible.
— Erik Sherman, Forbes, 26 Mar. 2023 -
There’s a knee-jerk dismissal of the talking-head interview, but there are ones that are not just soundbite-driven but are truly oral-history approaches that put the story in the hands of the people who lived it.
— Jonathan Bernstein, Rolling Stone, 6 Aug. 2024 -
But debate has raged over the effectiveness of the emergency measures that some described as a knee-jerk response to complex social issues.
— Hilary Whiteman, CNN, 29 Mar. 2024 -
And the hasty, knee-jerk responses weren’t particularly kind to his singing voice, which has—shocker!—evolved a tad after 25 years of touring, aging, and creative re-centering.
— Ryan Reed, SPIN, 10 May 2024
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Trump and his trade team’s knee jerk reaction appears to be a tariff.
— Christine McDaniel, Fortune, 22 Mar. 2018 -
Shouldn’t have gone against Americans with your knee jerk pandering to the gun grabbers.
— Alex Leary and Steve Bousquet, miamiherald, 13 Apr. 2018 -
My knee jerk reaction was to call the police and have Elenor call our neighbor friends a couple houses down.
— Marina Gomberg, The Salt Lake Tribune, 25 Sep. 2020 -
The knee jerk is, how could a team in UC’s precarious postseason position not try?
— Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 2 Mar. 2020 -
Nakano said any knee jerk reaction to the North Korean threat could risk inflaming tensions across the region.
— Ben Westcott, CNN, 15 Sep. 2017 -
Analysts anticipate a knee jerk spike in crude oil prices when the market opens Monday.
— Dalvin Brown, USA TODAY, 15 Sep. 2019 -
Despite the substantial losses the crypto market took over the weekend, King said the selloffs were merely a knee jerk reaction that happens from time to time, and not something to worry about in the long term.
— Fortune, 6 Dec. 2021 -
This transit can create confusion, and doesn't support knee jerk reactions.
— Venus Australis, refinery29.com, 19 Oct. 2020 -
But as with many of Trump's knee jerk proclamations, his threats satisfy short-term political goals but appear to contradict long-term concepts of US interests.
— Stephen Collinson, CNN, 7 Jan. 2020 -
The fact that our knee jerk reaction to a woman becoming single is one of exhilarated empowerment rather than pity or dismay shows that minds have been changed, even slightly.
— Kathryn Lindsay, refinery29.com, 13 July 2018 -
The Narendra Modi government’s knee jerk decision to curtail ties with China overnight could cost India heavily.
— Niharika Sharma, Quartz India, 2 July 2020 -
But the narrative that opposition to the reconstruction is being driven only by an overblown reverence for Bill Bowerman and Steve Prefontaine is knee jerk and, wrong.
— OregonLive.com, 29 Apr. 2018 -
The knee jerk reaction to provide ventilators for Africa is understandable.
— Efosa Ojomo, Quartz Africa, 2 May 2020
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'knee-jerk.' 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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