How to use decisive in a sentence
34 example sentences · adjective
Decisive means having the power or quality of deciding a question or controversy; putting an end to contest or controversy; final; conclusive. Example: “In truth, Tottenham never really looked like taking all three points and this defeat means they face a battle to reach the knockout stages -with their next home game against PAOK Salonika on 30 November likely to prove decisive.”
Examples of decisive by meaning
adjectiveHaving the power or quality of deciding a question or controversy; putting an end to contest or controversy; final...
- In truth, Tottenham never really looked like taking all three points and this defeat means they face a battle to reach the knockout stages -with their next home game against PAOK Salonika on 30 November likely to prove decisive.2011 November 3, Chris Bevan, “Rubin Kazan 1 - 0 Tottenham”, in BBC Sport
adjectiveMarked by promptness and decision, resolute; without hesitation.
- a decisive person
More sentences with decisive
- It wasn't a decisive operation, and Carthage still had command of Spain.2013, Barry Strauss, Masters of Command: Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, and the Genius of ..., Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 68. From the entry command
- Blucher's Prussians played a decisive role at the end of the battle."2013 June 26, Richard Norton-Taylor, “Osborne offers donation for restoration of Battle of Waterloo site”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The…. From the entry Hannoverian
- So far neither side has scored a decisive victory, though each will occasionally claim one.2011, “Connubial bliss in America”, in The Economist. From the entry will
- The notion of "do-ocracy" refers to the (explicit or implicit) assumption that expertise is decisive for agency within a community.2022, Aagje Swinnen, Amanda Kluveld, Renée van de Vall, editors, Engaged Humanities: Rethinking Art, Culture, and Public Life, Amsterdam…. From the entry do-ocratic
- They did nothing decisive to save the ecospherre, as everything had to be balanced to appease competing interests.2015, John Joseph Adams, Loosed Upon the World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction, →ISBN. From the entry lateralism
- Alexander Grishchuk provided the much-needed fireworks on the board, as six out of nine of his games were decisive.2015 September 3, Pradeep, “Grand Chess Tour 2015: Levon Aronian wins the Sinquefield Cup”, in Sportskeeda. From the entry blitz out
- It is time for decisive leadership and immediate action.2013 September 25, Desmond Tutu, “Every Child Deserves a Quality Education”, in Forbes, New York, N.Y.: Forbes, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC…. From the entry enough is enough
- Toure would have the decisive say though, rising high to power a header past Kenny from Aleksandar Kolarov's cross.2011 November 5, Phil Dawkes, “QPR 2-3 Man City”, in BBC Sport. From the entry would
- But this is not what is decisive, as it also applies to the distrustful, the underhanded, and the “deranged."2010, Martin Heidegger, Being and Truth, →ISBN, page 87. From the entry underhanded
- Hsu refutes Kasparov's controversial claim that only human intervention could have allowed Deep Blue to make its decisive, "uncomputerlike" moves.2002, Feng-Hsiung Hsu, Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion. From the entry uncomputerlike
- I suggest that the allosemitism endemic to western Civilization is to a decisive extent the legacy of Christendom.1998, Bryan Cheyette, Laura Marcus, Modernity, Culture, and 'the Jew', →ISBN, page 148. From the entry inassimilable
- All four officinae of Antioch remained active and their decisive evidence for the date of this coinage has been discussed above.1994, John Kent, editor, The Roman Imperial Coinage, →ISBN, page 70. From the entry officina
- In the first months after the October Revolution Lenin was already demanding "the most decisive, draconic measures to tighten up discipline."1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by Thomas P. Whitney, The Gulag Archipelago, Harper & Row, published 1973, Vol. 2, Part III, pp.…. From the entry draconic
- Again, emicness is not the decisive issue.1970, R.S. Meyerstein, edited by C.H. Van Schooneveld, Functional Load: Descriptive Limitations, Alternatives of Assessment, and…. From the entry emicness
- Imagination might struggle to annihilate the odious memory; but it never had power to win a decisive victory.1925, Aldous Huxley, chapter I, in Those Barren Leaves […], London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, part I (An Evening at Mrs. Aldwinkle’s), page 9. From the entry floater
- The big blow in the decisive third game came from catcher Jin-De Jhang, whose three-run triple gave Altoona all the breathing room it needed.2017, “Minor Leagues”, in Baseball America 2018 Almanac, Durham, N.C.: Baseball America, →ISBN, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 372. From the entry Jhang
- This brute factness of science ought not to obscure the decisive fact that Kant provided an idealist reconstruction of this scientific realist base.2013, Robert E. Butts, Historical Pragmatics: Philosophical Essays. From the entry factness
- One only has to study the ancient historians: all their anecdotes come from ʿIrāq, which also became the decisive area for the state finances.2012, Fred McGraw Donner, Lawrence I. Conrad, editors, The Articulation of Early Islamic State Structures (The Formation of the Classical…. From the entry ʿIrāq
- For the ‘consumer,’ CD improves on the gramophone in at least two decisive ways: it cuts out noise, and it cuts out wear.1983 February 27, Stephen Walsh, “The magic disc”, in The Observer, number 9990, page 31, column 7. From the entry CD-player
- The decisive factor in the origins of Colonial painting in Peru came a few years later from late Italian Mannerism and Counter-Mannerism.1975, The Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors. From the entry Counter-Mannerism
- The decisive moment was entirely in keeping with a game that was thrilling in its scrappiness, a mess of a goal to settle a mess of a game.2025 May 21, Jonathan Wilson, “Spurs prevail with Mourinho blueprint and ultra pragmatism in baffling final”, in The Guardian. From the entry scrappiness
- If the outcome of the land war on the Eastern Front is usually seen as decisive, historical views on the importance of the air war are mixed.2015, Phillips Payson O'Brien, How the War was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II, page 8. From the entry if
- These infamous little green men appeared during the decisive seizures or buildings and facilities, only to disappear when associated militias and local troops arrived to consolidate the gains.2014, “Little Green Men”: A Primer on Modern Russian Unconventional Warfare, Ukraine 2013–2014, Fort Bragg, North Carolina: The United…. From the entry infamous
- Silver needed to be bold and decisive and he was unquestionably both in sending the lout Donald Sterling to the showers with a lifetime ban on Tuesday.2014 April 29, Mitch Lawrence, “Donald Sterling's racist behavior has been habitual for years”, in New York Daily News, retrieved 08 Jul…. From the entry send someone to the showers
- A Korean example is digital TV development, which can be regarded as the decisive and final watershed that enabled Korea to begin taking over Japan in the TV business.2013, Joseph E. Stiglitz, edited by Justin Yifu Lin, The Industrial Policy Revolution, Springer, →ISBN. From the entry leapfrogging
- In this process, known as the Risorgimento, Garibaldi led his Redshirt followers to decisive victories over the Spanish Bourbon and Austrian Habsburg dynasties that still ruled much of Italy.2013, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Istanbul, Rome and Jerusalem: Titans of the Holy Cities, →ISBN. From the entry redshirt
- In the event, Carlton′s ‘worm’, Alex Jesaulenko, was comprehensively upstaged by his croweater rival, Barrie Robran, who in the end probably proved the decisive difference between the two sides.2009, John P. Devaney, Full Points Footy: Encyclopedia of Australian Football Clubs, page 328. From the entry croweater
- Although I am usually very decisive, I have been known to be double-minded about little things, like what to wear or where to go and eat.2004, Joyce Meyer, In Pursuit of Peace: 21 Ways to Conquer Anxiety, Fear, and Discontentment, →ISBN. From the entry double-minded
- Hasdeu, Mihai Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale – with a thorough and telling pleading on the decisive impact of Eminescu’s poetry (anthumously and posthumously published) with its Romantic-type inherent sublimity.1988, Romanian Review, page 77, column 2. From the entry anthumously
- In the light of recent history it is somewhat curious that this decisive power of the professional secondhand dealers in ideas should not yet be more generally recognized.1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of…. From the entry secondhand
- If this is sound, the pleasantness of pleasure can no longer be our guide; the higherness of the higher pleasure must have the decisive word — hedonism has committed suicide.1929, Robert Mackintosh, Values, a Bird's Eye Survey, page 40. From the entry pleasantness
- They had followed immediately behind him, thinking it barely possible that his actions might prove a clew to my whereabouts, and had witnessed my short but decisive battle with him.1912 February–July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Under the Moons of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC…. From the entry clew
Meaning of decisive
- adjective Having the power or quality of deciding a question or controversy; putting an end to contest or controversy; final; conclusive.
- adjective Decided; definite; incontrovertible.
- adjective Marked by promptness and decision, resolute; without hesitation.
Questions about decisive in a sentence
- How do you use decisive in a sentence?
- Decisive is used as an adjective. For example: “In truth, Tottenham never really looked like taking all three points and this defeat means they face a battle to reach the knockout stages -with their next home game against PAOK Salonika on 30 November likely to prove decisive.”
- What is a short sentence with decisive?
- “a decisive person”
- What does decisive mean?
- Decisive means having the power or quality of deciding a question or controversy; putting an end to contest or controversy; final; conclusive.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: decisive (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 decisive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/decisive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
