How to Use moralism in a Sentence

moralism

noun
  • The candidate's campaign was doomed by an incessant moralism that came across as condescension.
  • No doubt, Burns would have found the high-toned moralism of our age amusing.
    Madeleine Kearns, National Review, 25 Jan. 2021
  • But too often, the Elect have resorted to a smug moralism.
    Ian Buruma, Harper's Magazine, 2 June 2023
  • The fevered moralism of that age seems a long way from the paralyzing cynicism of ours.
    The Atlantic, 4 Nov. 2022
  • In a 2010 study , Markus Giesler and colleagues extended this idea of consumer moralism.
    Carl Engelking, Discover Magazine, 15 July 2016
  • This should not be read, however, as a tiresome kind of kumbaya moralism.
    Cameron Hilditch, National Review, 14 Aug. 2020
  • For the readers of the future, the books will always be there like sticks of dynamite, ready to blow up complacency and moralism.
    Adam Kirsch, The Atlantic, 23 May 2018
  • Beinart is hardly alone in allowing moralism to muddy his thinking about the world.
    Damon Linker, TheWeek, 9 Dec. 2020
  • What emerged instead was a descent from morality to moralism.
    Brian Stewart, National Review, 5 Oct. 2019
  • The pastoral moralism that he was often accused of peddling was actually a clever sleight of hand.
    Tyler Malone, latimes.com, 29 June 2018
  • Neither is the Offspring, a group formed under the strict moralism of mid-’80s punk, puckishly surviving in a world of Boyzone and Dawson’s Creek.
    Chris Norris, SPIN, 4 Sep. 2022
  • The events of this episode are Greek in tragedy, biblical in moralism, Tarantino-esque in carnage, and Fessy-ian in pettiness.
    Kyndall Cunningham, Vulture, 15 Apr. 2021
  • But George Eliot was intensely sincere in both her agnosticism and her moralism.
    James Wood, The New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2023
  • The over-all air of rigid Christian moralism is strengthened by, as Skimma observes, the political absence of separation of church and state.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 23 June 2022
  • The fusion of imagery and moralism is so simple-minded, and so brilliant, that there is a kind of excess electrical charge, which is also true of the most effective, viral memes.
    Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 7 Feb. 2023
  • There is a chance that Western democracies will overcome the current waves of right-wing populism and left-wing moralism, but the prospects will be much better if the Elect can learn to temper their puritanical zeal.
    Ian Buruma, Harper's Magazine, 2 June 2023
  • That perspective — in contrast to Drakeo’s millennial madman’s diaries — at the very least suggested a kind of moralism.
    Will Dukes, Rolling Stone, 22 Dec. 2021
  • In this worldview, aggressive secularism and moralism go hand in hand with the reckless condemnation of whole groups and peoples.
    Daniel J. Mahoney, National Review, 23 Sep. 2020
  • Both sisters used compelling flourishes, and an undercurrent of clear moralism, to bring history’s heroes and despots to life.
    Devoney Looser, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 Oct. 2022
  • The first precipice: The reduction of politics to moralism with, as a consequence, the dawning of an era of generalized suspicion and the revival of the Law of Suspects—guilty until proven innocent.
    Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Hive, 19 Apr. 2017
  • This conceit must strain Christian charity, let alone more austere Jewish and Muslim moralism.
    Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic, 28 May 2017
  • Since the turn of the millennium, the prosecution of white-collar crime has plummeted—but this should not imply a surge in moralism among our leading capitalists.
    Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 23 Aug. 2021
  • Roosevelt’s personal life and political views were both driven by a kind of righteous Protestant moralism that’s entirely alien to Trump.
    Vox Staff, Vox, 21 Dec. 2018
  • And Deming’s utter ignorance of that social problem looks like an inspired way around the sentimentality and thudding moralism that haunt the genre.
    Amy Weiss-Meyer, The Atlantic, 14 May 2017
  • But the risk is that this combination of exacting precision and stark moralism can be subtractive rather than additive.
    Matthew Yglesias, Vox, 26 June 2019
  • Undoubtedly an iconoclast, Hefner is rightly remembered as one of the first people to launch a national rebellion against the right-wing moralism of his time.
    Jessica Valenti, Marie Claire, 28 Sep. 2017
  • But for Keynes, this attitude simply reflected smug moralism.
    Kim Phillips-Fein, The New Republic, 9 June 2020
  • Second, misplaced moralism can provide cover for bad policies.
    Ed Yong, The Atlantic, 9 Sep. 2020
  • Eventually, as the over-pressurization of moralism intensifies, the desires of the masses erupt.
    Andrew Hartz, WSJ, 7 Aug. 2022
  • King was imbued with a deep moralism, but Kennedy was ever the pragmatist, always seeking out the optimal political angle.
    Vincent J. Cannato, WSJ, 26 July 2017

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