How to Use putative in a Sentence
putative
adjective-
That’s the state of play in Texas, the putative new home of SpaceX and X.
— Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 19 July 2024 -
Here was the chance to decipher the putative text of the polyptich.
— Quanta Magazine, 29 Sep. 2016 -
This is the putative excuse for the Emirati black sites.
— Cori Crider, The Atlantic, 25 June 2017 -
At the same time the door, and putative cause of the disaster, came off entirely.
— Gordon F. Sander, The Christian Science Monitor, 19 Nov. 2020 -
James Harden, the putative MVP, is playing out of his mind.
— Nathaniel Friedman, GQ, 15 Mar. 2018 -
The federal court in the Southern District of New York will look at the words used, and the conduct of the attorney and the putative client.
— Danny Cevallos /, NBC News, 17 Apr. 2018 -
Worse still, one of his putative ministers turned the job down.
— The Economist, 1 Mar. 2018 -
Even the putative villains of the story are allowed, in this measure, a voice.
— Jacob Bacharach, The New Republic, 25 July 2023 -
The suit is a putative class action on behalf of Yahoo users.
— Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica, 25 Apr. 2018 -
But that is only the beginning of the movie’s problems with its putative theme.
— Christopher Orr, The Atlantic, 20 Apr. 2018 -
But the decision may well be the defining moment for the putative Supreme Court of Facebook.
— Steven Levy, Wired, 5 May 2021 -
On the hunt Researchers hope to trap any Asian giant hornets in the area where the putative queen was found using a mixture of fruit juice and rice wine.
— Douglas Main, National Geographic, 1 June 2020 -
But the interview did not live up to its putative victim’s billing.
— Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 22 Oct. 2020 -
But most of these putative douchebags aren't really douchebags at all.
— Richard Dorment, Esquire, 18 June 2008 -
The putative reason: The band, which was at its height and falling apart at the same time, had learned that the festival was charging $25 for tickets, not the $17 the Clash had been told.
— Erik Himmelsbach-Weinstein, Los Angeles Magazine, 28 June 2017 -
One way to measure these mores and practices is to count state laws: How many states recognize a putative right and how many try to abridge it?
— Akhil Reed Amar, WSJ, 13 May 2022 -
But even as the dollar has lost some ground, the gap between it and any putative rival has only grown and shows no signs of stopping.
— Eswar Prasad, Foreign Affairs, 18 June 2024 -
And, in other cases, the putative planets are thought to orbit both stars.
— Bruce Dorminey, Forbes, 29 June 2021 -
But for the rest of us, the phenomenon is more interesting - and more fun - than any putative good that might come of it.
— The Washington Post, cleveland.com, 19 Jan. 2018 -
McCormack, the show’s putative straight man, amps up a Jeeves-and-Wooster huffiness to try to keep up with her.
— Vulture, 24 July 2023 -
The math for calculating the scale of a putative global climate refugee crisis is a bit fuzzy.
— Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2019 -
Beneath the cartouche are a compass, a ruler, a palette, and paintbrushes, and his right hand sits on the bottom of the putative frame — a trompe-l’oeil show-off move of the first order.
— Jason Farago, New York Times, 2 Nov. 2017 -
Our belief is based on the putative mechanism of NV-387.
— Miami Herald, 4 June 2024 -
And dark-horse putative candidates are getting their moment in the sun.
— Walter Shapiro, The New Republic, 6 Mar. 2023 -
But at the same time, his war of words with General al-Burhan, his putative boss and the army commander, grew steadily more intense.
— Declan Walsh, New York Times, 15 Apr. 2023 -
The aim was to trigger a bill or an audit when the IRS discovered the putative payee had not reported the income.
— Anne Diebel, The New York Review of Books, 8 Sep. 2020 -
So here’s some: The putative Islamic State is bleeding cash.
— Cohen Peart, The Denver Post, 27 Feb. 2017 -
The putative fourth, sterile neutrino lurked in the shadows.
— Quanta Magazine, 28 Oct. 2021 -
The putative dense spots created by inflation could have served as the seeds of future structures.
— Quanta Magazine, 3 Dec. 2021 -
Protecting the statue was also the putative focus of the Aug. 12 rally, a rally that attracted both a wide array of right-wing groups and counterprotesters.
— Philip Bump, Washington Post, 28 June 2024
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'putative.' 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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