Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use decency in a sentence

24 example sentences · noun

Decency means the quality of being decent; propriety. Example: “Television shows these days do not always toe the line of decency and common sense.”

Examples of decency by meaning

nounThe quality of being decent; propriety.

  • At long last, have you left no sense of decency?1954 June, Joseph N. Welch, Army–McCarthy hearings
  • And I’ll say this, at least when 70-something American politicians get creepily handsy with 30-something women, they have the decency to do so with their own daughters.2016, Tim Carvell [et al.], “Journalism”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 3, episode 20, John Oliver (actor), Warner Bros....

More sentences with decency

  • Television shows these days do not always toe the line of decency and common sense.From the entry toe the line
  • In the cult of degenerates, acts of decency, kindness and modesty could be seen as acts of apostasy.From the entry degenerate
  • Reddit praised him for doing a simple act of decency.From the entry reddit
  • That man didn't have a shred of common decency.From the entry common decency
  • His jovial, otterish, undergraduate, joshing decency was real, I decided, very country town, very West Australian.2002, Bob Ellis, Goodbye Babylon: Further Journeys in Time and Politics, Viking, published 2002, →ISBN, page 475. From the entry otterish
  • Decency required that secession and the Juggernautish western advance of slavery stop.1973, Harold Melvin Hyman, A More Perfect Union, page 39. From the entry Juggernautish
  • Our reputation in the world restored, with Britain once again standing up for decency, respect and the rule of law.2026 June 22, Keir Starmer, resignation speech. From the entry trade deal
  • The rules of decency and modesty arose out of antiphysical repugnances to physical functions that seemed to humiliate human dignity.2013, Bampfylde Fuller, The Law Within, page 71. From the entry antiphysical
  • Now we need a universal consensus about standards of decency toward ecosystems, individuals from other species, and Earth.2013, Will Anderson, This Is Hope: Green Vegans and the New Human Ecology. From the entry carnism
  • But at least most faux authors have the decency to pretend that they are sweating blood over "their" book.2009 April 13, “Vanity publishing”, in The Economist. From the entry pretend
  • Didn't even a morsel of decency remain in his brother?2008, Pamela Griffin, New York Brides, Barbour Publishing, →ISBN, page 70. From the entry morsel
  • But why do police become grass-eaters at all, if they lack the greed and contempt fo decency necessary to become meat-eaters?2002, Edwin J. Delattre, Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing, American Enterprise Institute, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 79. From the entry grass-eater
  • The post-Second World War movies said that villainy would be punished and goodness would triumph; the decencies would be respected.1973, Pauline Kael, The New Yorker. From the entry Vietnamization
  • Government standards of decency and honesty were quite low, and decision-makers were tainted with self-interest and corruption at the very highest level.2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 52. From the entry self-interest
  • He’s a man of uncommon decency.2007, Joe Biden, “Jill”, in Promises to Keep, New York: Random House, published 2008, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 111. From the entry Hawaii
  • Let us turn, finally, to the war itself, and ask ourselves if it can be understood as the victory of decency over Machiavellianism.2001, Tim Spiekerman, Shakespeare's Political Realism: The English History Plays, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 54. From the entry Machiavellianism
  • Riling people to the point of stupidity is a poor litmus test of their decency, no matter how red and blue their faces get.2000, Dirt First!, “Re: Thanks for all the fish, but I'm vegetarian”, in comp.lang.perl.misc (Usenet). From the entry bozon
  • Such was their effect that Frank appears to have suspended his critical capacities; he accepted unqualifyingly the decency of the organization, whatever.1996, Stephen Fineman, Yiannis Gabriel, Experiencing Organizations, page 141. From the entry unqualifyingly
  • From the standpoint of simple decency and clean manhood and womanhood, any mean street, of all its mean streets, is a slum.1903 October, Jack London, chapter 19, in The People of the Abyss, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.…. From the entry mean streets
  • He rails, he piles on the abuse, he calumnies without any sense of decency or restraint, and his gloomy character makes him see everything as black.2008, Paul-Henri Thiry; Baron d’Holbach, “Bergier’s Refutation”, in David Holohan, transl., Christianity Unveiled (Rescued from Obscurity…. From the entry calumny
  • And I hope our Presidency has been one of decency, a sense of honor, a sense of fairplay, and I'm just going to continue to emphasize these themes.1993, George Bush, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, page 404. From the entry fairplay
  • Any Senator who can not stand up and have the yardstick of common decency and common honesty applied to him here ought not to be in the Senate.1924, United States. Congress, Congressional Record, page 3313. From the entry dopestick

Meaning of decency

  1. noun The quality of being decent; propriety.
  2. noun That which is proper or becoming.

Full definition of decency

Questions about decency in a sentence

How do you use decency in a sentence?
Decency is used as a noun. For example: “Television shows these days do not always toe the line of decency and common sense.”
What is a short sentence with decency?
“He’s a man of uncommon decency.”
What does decency mean?
Decency means the quality of being decent; propriety.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: decency (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 decency in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/decency. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.