How to Use moralistic in a Sentence

moralistic

adjective

• While a moralistic speech won't convince kids not to try drugs, a story about people affected by drugs might.
• The film gets into some moralistic hand-wringing over the fact that her death should not be blamed on her promiscuity.
  — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 4 May 2023
• Miss Brent (Manon Halliburton) is a moralistic Bible thumper...with a secret of her own.
  — Robert W. Butler, kansascity, 13 Aug. 2017
• The moralistic naysayers among us were all too quick to point out that Chastain and Isaac are both married, and not to each other, but guess what, haters?
  — Emma Specter, Vogue, 7 Sep. 2021
• The show’s tricky tonal blend—violent, but not nihilistic; moral, but not moralistic—was hard to nail.
  — Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker, 13 June 2022
• What James does propose is that some of our best terms have swollen in their metaphorical meaning and moralistic charge.
  — Ian Beacock, The New Republic, 22 Feb. 2022
• Along the way, and not without humor, Joy learns to discard her moralistic assumptions about Jane’s clients.
  — Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Jan. 2022
• But Roth was too moralistic, too observant at the high altar of modernism, too prissy to get into the funk and gunk of true swingdom.
  — James Wolcott, Vanities, 24 May 2018
• And — even more intensely — the show struck me as intensely moralistic.
  — Chris Jones, chicagotribune.com, 8 Sep. 2017
• The books were gripping, moralistic, and deeply disturbing.
  — Ben Huberman, Longreads, 6 Apr. 2018
• In the final episode, Ritchie’s moralistic logic of blame isn’t refuted but turned toward a new target.
  — Brian Mullin, Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 2021
• Joe Biden, like many (probably most) Democrats, often speaks about the economy in moralistic terms.
  — Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, 19 Apr. 2022
• At the same time, who could blame him for exploiting the moralistic codes that govern so much of his daily life, and for trying to acquire a dose of respect in a society where virtue is the true coin of the realm?
  — Los Angeles Times, 6 Jan. 2022
• Without being too heavy handed in any moralistic messaging, McAnuff hopes the audience sees what the intent of the work has been since the beginning.
  — Julia Jacobs, New York Times, 12 July 2023
• The low-budget 1983 comedy Joysticks was a (bad) movie about teens fighting to save their arcade from a moralistic businessman who claimed the joint was a threat to their mental health.
  — Ryan Smith, Chicago Reader, 5 May 2018
• There will be no moralistic preaching here against sports wagering.
  — Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 Aug. 2021
• The Plain women writers of today are not content to churn out the same old evangelizing, moralistic stories.
  — Kelsey Osgood, The Atlantic, 28 June 2022
• The press has become more moralistic than in previous decades, and social media is a jittery engine for outrage.
  — Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 5 Feb. 2020
• George , father of the Cold War containment doctrine, warned in 1951 against Wilson’s moralistic approach.
  — Joseph S. Nye Jr., WSJ, 24 Jan. 2020
• Prudes are going to be prudish, so no point in trying to appease them in a show that’s all about the havoc that’s wrought when human biology is denied by moralistic zealots.
  — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 1 Nov. 2023
• Perhaps not all of their books would pass muster with modern readers: Ms. Looser talks of sprawling epics, holier-than-thou heroes and moralistic messages.
  — Malcolm Forbes, WSJ, 27 Oct. 2022
• The counterculture had been a scruffy, literally hairy affair; the ’80s, throwing over all that moralistic rebellion-against-the-system stuff, would be sleek, shaved, and beige.
  — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 17 Apr. 2022
• At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Sheldon’s therapist is a supervillain Dr. Jack Hobbs, who’s serving a life sentence in jail, which is incredibly cool for a show that can get kind of dorky and moralistic.
  — Leah Marilla Thomas, refinery29.com, 10 May 2021
• The deeply moralistic accusation: Drake was a deadbeat.
  — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 5 July 2018
• And there's his oddly moralistic devil character (closer to a used car salesman than the Prince of Darkness), who, upon hearing about the Penn State scandal, breaks his pitchfork, throws in the towel, and quits.
  — Debby Wolfinsohn, EW.com, 31 May 2023
• Rare in an Iranian film, the scenes of gypsy life are shown in a natural way, without folkloric or moralistic overtones (though Granny does wonder where all their money comes from).
  — Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter, 27 Nov. 2017
• How to Blow Up a Pipeline could have become a dour, moralistic exercise or a potboiler devoid of politics.
  — Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 8 Apr. 2023
• In the hands of a less capable performer, or a performer who laughs less readily, these demurrals might have come off as disingenuous or moralistic.
  — Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 22 Dec. 2022
• And in a Western world where the government declares it is not just the arbiter of fairness but also the deliverer of equal results, what corner of life is left untouched from the all-powerful and moralistic state?
  — Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 11 July 2017
• There’s simplistic storytelling, there’s moralistic storytelling, there’s storytelling where anybody with a white hat is good and anybody with a black hat is bad.
  — NBC News, 4 Apr. 2021

Last Updated: 8 Aug 2024