How to Use venal in a Sentence

venal

adjective

• It’s the thumb in the eye arm, and Buddhists is doing all sorts of venal stuff in his last year.
  — Leila Atassi, cleveland, 19 Apr. 2022
• But at this point, the most surprising thing Donald Trump could do is not act like Donald Trump—to not be a venal cretin for the first time in his life.
  — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 28 Sep. 2020
• Still, my father-in-law said Castellano was venal and brutal.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 5 Nov. 2019
• Like all of us, museums are stitched tight into the fabric of a messy, venal, Darwinian world.
  — Holland Cotter, New York Times, 18 Mar. 2020
• America is, at its core, a nasty, venal, selfish and racist culture.
  — Jason Johnson, The Root, 24 May 2017
• Although your crime Was shocking and venal, Here’s hoping your sentence Isn’t too . . .
  — Pat Myers, Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2022
• The film also reckons with the venal politics of the era, which Gray perceives as a warning bell for our polarized present.
  — David Sims, The Atlantic, 2 Nov. 2022
• Its politicians are in a venal class of their own, more unaccountable than any others in the eurozone.
  — Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, 3 Dec. 2023
• Murder, rape, arson, the whole catalogue of venal and deadly deeds.
  — Daniel Burke, CNN, 8 Oct. 2017
• And thus does the demonization of fashion play on; its role as shorthand for all that is morally corrupt and venal in the world continues.
  — New York Times, 27 May 2021
• His success at his new job leads to moral dilemmas and encounters with the company’s venal boss, played by Armie Hammer.
  — Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 Apr. 2018
• Some of India’s media have venal inclinations, making them prone to bribery by those who want to use them to get their message across.
  — The Economist, 31 May 2018
• Jay Mohr plays a venal politician with a troublesome laptop.
  — Darren Franich, EW.com, 3 Jan. 2022
• He was praised as a can-do, pro-business pragmatist who would wipe clean and shape up a government widely seen as venal and rotten.
  — The Economist, 24 Oct. 2019
• At the other end of the moral spectrum is Morton, treading the line between compromised, guilty mother and venal fortune hunter.
  — Viv Groskop, Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2017
• Unbeknownst to them all, the Trenchards' venal staff plot with enemies to undo the family in exchange for some coin.
  — Robyn Bahr, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Apr. 2020
• Britons went to India for many reasons, both venal and altruistic.
  — David Gilmour, WSJ, 22 Feb. 2019
• The satire lands on obvious Miami targets — the rich, the shallow, the venal, the felonious, status seekers and zealots of every stripe —and the punches connect with all the subtlety of a storm surge.
  — miamiherald, 19 Oct. 2012
• The fear of being shaken down by venal bureaucrats and taxmen remains a powerful reason to stay below the radar.
  — The Economist, 1 Mar. 2018
• Venal politicians continue sucking the blood of the Republic.
  — John Kass, chicagotribune.com, 1 June 2017
• Of all the film’s street slime, the corporation is surely Robocop‘s most venal, despicable monster.
  — Duane Byrge, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 July 2022
• Not all of the venal characters here have brown skin or foreign accents, and, in one thread, anti-Muslim bigotry, not radical terror, is the problem.
  — Neil Genzlinger, New York Times, 2 Feb. 2017
• On Twitter, the repository of all that is supportive and venal about our national cultural discourse, the love poured in along with a few haters and skeptics.
  — Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 26 Sep. 2019
• All of a sudden, the rationale behind a continental super league does not seem quite so brazenly venal.
  — Rory Smith, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2023
• The first page of John Keay’s history, published in 1991, describes its venal reputation.
  — The Economist, 10 Oct. 2019
• Katumbi believes that the country has been dismantled by venal politicians.
  — Nicolas Niarchos, The New Yorker, 12 Sep. 2019
• The story situates Matty as a smooth and cunning figure, several miles ahead of Ned’s venal legal mind.
  — Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture, 8 Apr. 2022
• Pay is low, graft is rife and hospitals are often run by venal political appointees.
  — The Economist, 16 Dec. 2020
• Although set in the present, the show is a direct descendant of 1940s noir films, in which an isolated man wanders through a venal Los Angeles, dealing with con men, gangsters, and a smart-cracking blonde.
  — Rachel Syme, The New Republic, 23 Mar. 2018
• Many simply believed that this venal side to their politics could be controlled and suppressed in the service of other political priorities.
  — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 26 Oct. 2023

Last Updated: 29 Nov 2024