How to Use lowest common denominator in a Sentence

lowest common denominator

noun
  • But for that, the industry needs to change from chasing the lowest common denominator, fake scale, and cheap CPMs.
    Isaac Mizrahi, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2023
  • Twitter had a word count, and it’s also just a yelling match that descends to the lowest common denominator.
    Mark Ellwood, Robb Report, 6 May 2021
  • Where to Eat The usual challenge of dining around Times Square — how to find a restaurant that’s not aimed at the lowest common denominator?
    New York Times, 13 June 2018
  • But there are other ways to spiral down to the lowest common denominator, and then lower and lower, and there’s no relief, and there’s no bottom.
    Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 19 Nov. 2021
  • Yet both are so smart and complex in their own ways, refusing to talk down to its audience and pander to the lowest common denominator.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 22 July 2023
  • The drumettes and flats are golden, juicy and crispy, bar-food perfection; the glaze, however, is sticky and sweet, a mumbo sauce aiming for the lowest common denominator.
    Tim Carman, Washington Post, 6 Mar. 2023
  • This type of attack is an appeal to the lowest common denominator in our public debate.
    Emma Colton, Washington Examiner, 15 Oct. 2020
  • Kids entertainment doesn’t have to be dumbed down, and Kao plays to the lowest common denominator, both in terms of its story and generic gameplay.
    Mitch Wallace, Forbes, 28 May 2022
  • The power of the press was being squandered in an unseemly contest for the lowest common denominator.
    James M. Lundberg, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Mar. 2020
  • This is not a time for lowest common denominator, watered down reforms.
    CBS News, 14 June 2020
  • The lowest common denominator of the toxic workplace is anywhere that employees do not feel safe, supported or heard.
    Mark C. Perna, Forbes, 1 June 2022
  • The apartment’s living room was decorated in a kind of lowest common denominator of urban style, with a black modernist couch and stainless-steel appliances.
    Emily Witt, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2020
  • In professional sports, competing is the bare minimum, the lowest common denominator, the one quality that separates your team from, say, the New York Jets.
    Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 10 Mar. 2021
  • The beef and bean filling was seasoned and spiced in a way that almost certainly a legion of food scientists had engineered to reach maximum appeal to the lowest common denominator.
    Paul Stephen, San Antonio Express-News, 21 Dec. 2022
  • Facing negative headwinds, many businesses instinctively play to the lowest common denominator and see change as a tax or burden to be dealt with.
    Ryan Roslansky, Fortune, 20 Mar. 2023
  • That means the only type of content that is financially viable is the lowest common denominator content that appeals to mass audiences.
    Yola Robert, Forbes, 19 May 2022
  • Affordable to most, a burger and fries spiked with ketchup was a democratic, delicious lowest common denominator meal.
    Amy Bentley, Smithsonian, 4 June 2018
  • Even the lowest common denominator of news — simply being interesting — has been tossed aside.
    Rich Lowry, National Review, 20 Oct. 2020
  • Gun control advocates point out that state standards differ, and say the reciprocity would play to the lowest common denominator.
    Todd J. Gillman and Joseph Morton, Dallas News, 6 June 2022
  • At its lowest common denominator, life during a pandemic is a series of risk-reward choices.
    David Wharton, Los Angeles Times, 6 Dec. 2020
  • Father and son both dislike the lowest common denominator of … anything, including beer.
    Lauren Delgado, OrlandoSentinel.com, 13 June 2018
  • In 2016 Donald Trump appealed to a jaded electorate by suggesting that his propensity to donate to both parties was not a sign of lacking principles but instead an appeal to the lowest common denominator.
    Angela Denker, Fortune, 28 Oct. 2020
  • In fact, averages are, by definition, measures of mediocrity, the lowest common denominator, the results of which can be seen in today’s education system.
    Jeanne Allen, Forbes, 23 Oct. 2021
  • The agreement represents a lowest common denominator compromise on gun violence, not a complete sea change in Congress.
    Alan Fram, BostonGlobe.com, 12 June 2022
  • Cinemas are currently offering a pretty easy program tailored to the lowest common denominator that simply gets the audience only used to event films.
    Alex Ritman, The Hollywood Reporter, 11 Feb. 2022
  • Nobody is saying the Hungarian rate serve as the basis for a pillar 2 minimum tax, suggesting that the exercise is not about finding the lowest common denominator with a European flagpole.
    Tax Notes Staff, Forbes, 27 May 2021
  • These are simply unsatisfactory, one and all, with the cheapest ingredients and lowest common denominator of taste.
    Larry Olmsted, Forbes, 4 Jan. 2022
  • As a member-run trade association, their position is often driven by the lowest common denominator.
    Bernice Yeung, ProPublica, 29 Oct. 2021
  • In the absence of new laws, American regulators and antitrust prosecutors have had to rely on the lowest common denominator of US anti-monopoly policy: the consumer welfare standard.
    Nicolás Rivero, Quartz, 11 June 2021
  • So, therefore, lowest common denominator international policies tended to come out the other end.
    CBS News, 6 Nov. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'lowest common denominator.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: