Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use abject in a sentence

23 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Abject means existing in or sunk to a low condition, position, or state; contemptible, despicable, miserable. Example: “Deutsche Bank’s reputation was abject even before the mirror-trades scandal broke.”

Examples of abject by meaning

adjectiveExisting in or sunk to a low condition, position, or state; contemptible, despicable, miserable.

  • Deutsche Bank’s reputation was abject even before the mirror-trades scandal broke.2020 September 23, Ed Caesar, “The FinCEN Files Shed New Light on a Scandalous Episode at Deutsche Bank”, in The New Yorker, New York...

adjectiveComplete; downright; utter.

  • abject failure abject nonsense abject terror

adjectiveMarginalized as deviant.

  • The abject can easily be grafted onto the immigrant body, which is often conceived as something to be excluded in order to preserve a coherent yet racist national imaginary.2007, Sean Brayton, “MTV's Jackass: Transgression, Abjection and the Economy of White Masculinity”, in Journal of Gender Studies, volume...
  • The disclosure of tolerance's hidden phobic lining fits in well with queer theory's embrace of the abject.2009, W. C. Harris, Queer Externalities: Hazardous Encounters in American Culture, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 98

nounA person in the lowest and most despicable condition; an oppressed person; an outcast; also, such people as a class.

  • We become not subjects but abjects, a problem to be managed against our will in the name of a public good that does not recognize us as part of the public.2024 May 17, Abigail Thorn, “I Read The Most Misunderstood Philosopher in the World” (36:02 from the start), in Philosophy Tube

verbTo cast off or out (someone or something); to reject, especially as contemptible or inferior.

  • Rather than abjecting her own fat body, the Ipecac-taking fat girl is abjecting diet culture.2001, Le’a Kent, “Fighting Abjection: Representing Fat Women”, in Jana Evans Braziel, Kathleen LeBesco, editors, Bodies out of Bounds...

More sentences with abject

  • The opposing view sees it as an abject failure and historically irrelevant.2021 September 12, Andrew Anthony, “‘We showed it was possible to create a movement from almost nothing’: Occupy Wall Street 10 years on”…. From the entry asterisk
  • That has only left room for some dot-connection, reading between the lines, or abject confusion.2019 November 24, Michael Lee, “Jimmy Butler boos, Josh Richardson buckets and a reunion for both players that answered a few lingering…. From the entry dot-connection
  • The one-line chapter pitting gays with the abject mother of macho dismissal and scorn?2009, J. Neil C. Garcia, Philippine Gay Culture. From the entry gayless
  • Even humility and self-abnegation, however abject, were not enough to prevent one’s downfall.2006, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, chapter 8, in Wizard of the Crow, New York: Pantheon, page 231. From the entry self-abnegation
  • The measureless squalor, the calm, house-broken, dog-hearted, subjected, abjected, subtracted, contracted, signed sealed and delivered.1954, Louis Grudin, Inky Darkling, page 176. From the entry dog-hearted
  • To be truly patriotic we must rid ourselves of this abject dependence on other nations for our elephants.2008, Paul Chambers, Jumbo: This Being the True Story of the Greatest Elephant in the World, Hanover, New Hampshire: Steerforth Press…. From the entry elephantless
  • On the other side of this double refusal, he is a deject—a ghostly placeholder of the abject; the stray anti-locus of the negative.2020, Weird Mysticism: Philosophical Horror and the Mystical Text, page 110. From the entry deject
  • Reality itself, in the way of the abject, keeps returning to the stand-up comedian, who throws it off in the form of jokes.2018, Jonathan Wyatt, Therapy, Stand-Up, and the Gesture of Writing. From the entry throw off
  • To him the white backpackers are abject, 'safari wiggers' who threaten to undo all his careful work at 'passing' in this culture.2017, Patrick Turner, Hip Hop Versus Rap: The Politics of Droppin' Knowledge, page 129. From the entry backpacker
  • The Caligulan malice with which Donald Trump administered Paul Ryan’s degradation is an object lesson in the price of abject capitulation to power.2016, George F. Will, “The ‘big price’ Paul Ryan has paid for supporting Donald Trump”, in The Washington Post. From the entry Caligulan
  • The swarthies didn't bother to threaten us this time; instead, they mocked us with catcalls and whistles, as we squeezed past them in abject humiliation.2014, Dead Men Don't Eat Lunch, page 52. From the entry swarthy
  • Although representations of abject white masculinity in Jackass are potentially valid critiques of working-class subjugation, they may also resubordinate the historically marginalized through erasure.2007, Sean Brayton, “MTV's Jackass: Transgression, Abjection and the Economy of White Masculinity”, in Journal of Gender Studies, volume…. From the entry resubordinate
  • The disclosure of tolerance's hidden phobic lining fits in well with queer theory's embrace of the abject as exhorted by Michael Warner, David Halperin, and Lee Edelman.2009 September 10, W. C. Harris, Queer Externalities: Hazardous Encounters in American Culture, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 98. From the entry abjection
  • Just as John Howard was wrong to deny the confessional value of the apology, many Laborites are wrong to deny the abject failures of past generation policies.2008 February 16, Paul Kelly, The Australian. From the entry denialism
  • Indeed, split white trash in two again and read the meanings of each: white now appears as an ethnoracial signifier, and trash, a signifier of abject class status.2006, Matt Wray, Not Quite White, page 3. From the entry ethnoracial
  • So abject was its condition that recently efforts had actually been made by a hardened and determined ichthyophobe named Clayton to convert it into a garage for char-à-bancs.1922 September 20, E. V. L., “The Fishes’ Revenge”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume 163, page 286. From the entry char-à-banc
  • Hence, the play abounds with abject or degraded forms of whiteness embodied in characters who use addictive drugs, go combo, commit violent crimes or simply succumb to the tropical heat.2003, Helen Gilbert, “Millennial blues: racism, nationalism and the legacy of empire”, in Elizabeth Schafer, Susan Bradley, editors…. From the entry go combo

Meaning of abject

  1. adjective Existing in or sunk to a low condition, position, or state; contemptible, despicable, miserable.
  2. adjective Complete; downright; utter.
  3. adjective Lower than nearby areas; low-lying.

Full definition of abject

Questions about abject in a sentence

How do you use abject in a sentence?
Abject is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “Deutsche Bank’s reputation was abject even before the mirror-trades scandal broke.”
What is a short sentence with abject?
“abject failure abject nonsense abject terror”
What does abject mean?
Abject means existing in or sunk to a low condition, position, or state; contemptible, despicable, miserable.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: abject (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use abject in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/abject. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.