Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use expletive in a sentence

15 example sentences · adjective, noun

Expletive means serving to fill up, merely for effect, otherwise redundant. Example: “The pop star used so many expletives that the interview was unbroadcastable.”

More sentences with expletive

  • The pop star used so many expletives that the interview was unbroadcastable.From the entry unbroadcastable
  • In the sentences "It is a hammer that is needed." and "There are hammers in the toolbox.", both "it" and "there" are syntactic expletives.From the entry syntactic expletive
  • His tirade contained a torrent of expletives that were bleeped out by his press service.2023 May 5, Unknown, “Wagner Group 'to pull out of Bakhmut'”, in RTHK. From the entry bleep out
  • They were probably afraid that we would bury them in another carpet bomb of expletives.2014, Jerald Ford, When I Am King, volume 2, page 290. From the entry carpet bomb
  • Because you sold him out just to have a martyr, you expletive deleted.2013, J. David Markham, Mike Resnick, History Revisited: The Great Battles, Eminent Historians Take on the Great Works of Alternative…. From the entry expletive deleted
  • Both culturally and percussively, sometimes the music just calls for a good expletive.2011 December 30, Lonnae O'Neal Parker, “By night, Asheru. By day, Mr. Benn. A hip-hop artist transforms education.”, in The Washington…. From the entry curse jar
  • As the emerging seamen ran out of expletives so the Kalahari may have run out of sand.2009, Ted Macey, Merry Swan, Jack the Lad RN, page 17. From the entry crook and nanny
  • Turning to the unknown loudmouth, Streisand unceremoniously, and certainly unladylike-ly, said “Shut the (expletive) up!2006 October 13, Kimberley McGee, “Hopefully she’s a good actress”, in Southern Utah’s Entertainment Guide, section “Diva Antics”, page 34. From the entry unladylikely
  • Arya Samajic ideals are not described in clear expletives in experiential terms, but rather in ethical ideals.1992, Thillayvel Naidoo, The Arya Samaj Movement in South Africa, Motilal Banarsidass, →ISBN, page 85. From the entry Arya Samajic
  • Soon I will zero (expletive deleted) your desks and your backups on System A.1984, Richard Sedric Fox Eells, Peter Raymond Nehemkis, Corporate Intelligence and Espionage: A Blueprint for Executive Decision Making…. From the entry cracker
  • Reubens, as a rock concert promoter, gets to pop his cork, spewing expletives with a patently cathartic force.2007 May 20, Ruth La Ferla, “The Once and Future Pee-wee”, in New York Times, retrieved 05 Jul 2015. From the entry pop one's cork
  • Complex expletives in turn-final position were also used as a kind of deprecatory appealers, e.g. in God's name, for God's sake and for heaven's sake.2014, Karin Aijmer, Bengt Altenberg, English Corpus Linguistics, page 251. From the entry appealer
  • Hence, perhaps, the innumerability of the anecdotes anent the irrepressibility of profanity while playing the game — a game proverbially provocative of reprehensible expletives.1910, Arnold Haultain, The Mystery of Golf, The Macmillan Company, page 197. From the entry innumerability
  • Some speculated Twitter’s stock would plummet, while another said the company would not have to be owned by “a moron,” using an expletive to refer to Mr.2022 October 4, Kate Conger, Lauren Hirsch, “Elon Musk Suggests Buying Twitter at His Original Price”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry plummet
  • It’s used in “Straße,” the word for street, and in the expletive “Scheiße.” It’s often transliterated as “ss,” and strangely enough, it’s never had an official uppercase counterpart.2017 July 20, Thu-Huong Ha, “Germany has ended a century-long debate over a missing letter in its alphabet”, in Quartz, archived from the…. From the entry transliterate

Meaning of expletive

  1. adjective Serving to fill up, merely for effect, otherwise redundant.
  2. adjective Marked by expletives (phrase-fillers).
  3. noun A profane, vulgar term, notably a curse or obscene oath.

Full definition of expletive

Questions about expletive in a sentence

How do you use expletive in a sentence?
Expletive is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The pop star used so many expletives that the interview was unbroadcastable.”
What is a short sentence with expletive?
“The pop star used so many expletives that the interview was unbroadcastable.”
What does expletive mean?
Expletive means serving to fill up, merely for effect, otherwise redundant.

Source and license

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