Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use manipulative in a sentence

21 example sentences · adjective, noun

Manipulative means using manipulation purposefully. Example: “As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation.”

Examples of manipulative by meaning

adjectiveUsing manipulation purposefully.

  • As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation.2012 January, Robert M. Pringle, “How to Be Manipulative”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 03...

nounA manipulable object designed to demonstrate a mathematical concept.

  • Some children need manipulatives to learn math basics, Dr.2008 April 25, Kenneth Chang, “Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices”, in New York Times

More sentences with manipulative

  • The magus is manipulative, mendacious, a master of illusions and mind games.2026, Sebastian Mallaby, chapter 2, in The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence, Penguin, →ISBN. From the entry mind game
  • But police said he was arrogant and manipulative, while Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah was weak-minded and gullible.2024 December 5, Katie Thompson, Annie Delaney, “The fictional kingdom of couple who buried son in garden”, in BBC News. From the entry weak-minded
  • Don’t let manipulative state legislators misrepresent science and fearmonger you into giving them money.2021 June 24, Jack Turban and Jules Gill-Peterson, “Attacks on trans people are also attacks on science itself”, in CNN, archived from the…. From the entry pseudoscientific
  • So is the argument that all that social good justifies Evan’s manipulative means?2021 September 22, Caroline Siede, “Dear Evan Hansen is a misfire on just about every level”, in AV Club. From the entry glom onto
  • What he liked to call helpful, however, was more like Gwen's idea of controlling and manipulative.2004, Elaine Cunningham, Shadows In The Darkness, Tor/Forge, →ISBN, page 49. From the entry potayto, potahto
  • It’s not that Lynch is somehow “above” being manipulative; it’s more like he’s just not interested.1997, David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch keeps his head”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Kindle edition, Little, Brown…. From the entry complexly
  • Noriyuki "Pat" Morita returns for a needless fourth go-round of manipulative chopstickiness.1994 September 22, The Herald Statesman, New York, page 53. From the entry chopstickiness
  • What emotional self-interruptions do through affective means, manipulative self-interruptions achieve through suggesting missing logical connections whether accurate or fallacious.2022, Michael M. Wagoner, Interruptions in Early Modern English Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 76. From the entry self-interruption
  • Of course, if you're a sneaky, manipulative scuzzball, then maybe you don't want your boss to know you very well.2000, Robert Bacal, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dealing With Difficult Employees. From the entry scuzzball
  • The results of a study of manipulative treatment of dysarteriotony associated with cervical spondylosis are reported in the paper.1991, W Guikang, “A study of manipulative treatment of dysarteriotony associated with oervioal spondyilsis”, in The Journal of Traditional…. From the entry dysarteriotony
  • Whichever of these methods of manipulative reduction is used, a simple test for reduction, the Leadbetter heel-palm test, can be applied.1957, William E. Kenney, Carroll B.. Larson, Orthopedics for the General Practitioner, page 219. From the entry heel-palm
  • Manipulative populism is a predatory ideology.2022 September 4, Garfield Higgins, “Divisions, misinformation, and disinformation”, in Jamaica Observer. From the entry post-truthism
  • For examples, students may write letters or form words using play-doh or complete addition and subtraction problems with play-doh rolls as manipulatives.2022, Research Anthology on Physical and Intellectual Disabilities in an Inclusive Society, IGI Global, →ISBN, page 1175. From the entry play-doh
  • It actually refers to manipulative elders who remove any obstacle from their offspring’s path, thereby ensuring they always get where they want to go.2018, Shari Low, “The Parent Label”, in Because Mummy Said So, London: Anima, Head of Zeus, →ISBN. From the entry snowplough parent
  • I didn’t mention my son’s remark to my parents because it seemed emotionally manipulative, but I have it in my back pocket just in case.2010 June 18, Ben Greenman, “King of His Multigenerational Castle?”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 Jan 2019. From the entry in one's back pocket
  • Initiation into the psychological concepts and manipulative stratagems of the art course often comes as a shock to those naïve individuals the computer mispicked.2009, Eldon Taylor, Mind Programming, page 53. From the entry mispick
  • This "shelfwork" includes manipulatives for students to use in order to review or reinforce skills taught in math, language arts, social studies and science.1987, Newsletter, page 192. From the entry shelfwork
  • Personal stories about unhappy relationships, cheating partners and manipulative ex-wives were often described in detail, usually to illustrate AWALT and serve as the basis for the MGTOW lifestyle.2020, Scott Wright, Verity Trott, Callum Jones, “‘The pussy ain’t worth it, bro’: assessing the discourse and structure of MGTOW”, in…. From the entry ex-wife
  • Newspeak can be defined as discourse, proper or peculiar to the totalitarian state and transmitted through the manipulative use of language to all sectors and institutions of the state.1995, Edward Możejko, “Between Symbolist Decline and the Rise of Newspeak: Mapping the Dynamics of the Russian Literary Avant-Garde”, in…. From the entry newspeak

Meaning of manipulative

  1. adjective Using manipulation purposefully.
  2. adjective Tending to manipulate.
  3. adjective Reaching one's goals at the expense of other people by using them.

Full definition of manipulative

Questions about manipulative in a sentence

How do you use manipulative in a sentence?
Manipulative is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation.”
What is a short sentence with manipulative?
“Manipulative populism is a predatory ideology.”
What does manipulative mean?
Manipulative means using manipulation purposefully.

Source and license

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