How to use merit in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Merit means a claim to commendation or a reward. Example: “For her good performance in the examination, her teacher gave her ten merits.”

Examples of merit by meaning

nounA mark or token of approbation or to recognize excellence.

For her good performance in the examination, her teacher gave her ten merits.

nounSomething deserving or worthy of positive recognition or reward.

His reward for his merit was a check for $50.

nounThe sum of all the good deeds that a person does which determines the quality of the person's next state of existence...

to acquire or make merit
At funerals, acts of sharing religious merit are central and relatives of the deceased make merit in order to ensure that the departed family member will have a favourable rebirth.2015, Monica Lindberg Falk, “Communication across Boundaries”, in Post-Tsunami Recovery in Thailand: Socio-cultural Responses (The Modern...

nounUsually in the plural form the merits: the substantive rightness or wrongness of a legal argument, a lawsuit, etc., as...

Even though the plaintiff was ordered by the judge to pay some costs for not having followed the correct procedure, she won the case on the merits.

verbTo deserve, to earn.

Her performance merited wild applause.
“What I’m looking for,” he barked, “is to be left in peace.” His voice trembled with a rage far bigger than her intrusion merited, the rage which shocked him whenever it coursed through his nervous system, like a flood.2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 5
And on the plausible assumption that the more meriting of some good one is the more good one merits, the principle would support allocating more of the help to her the greater her needs.2014, Hanoch Sheinman, “Tort Law and Distributive Justice”, in John Oberdiek, editor, Philosophical Foundations of the Law of Torts...

verbTo be deserving or worthy.

They were punished as they merited.

More sentences with merit

He launched into a long-winded discussion of the relative merits of asphalt and concrete.From the entry long-winded
We've been discussing the relative merits of various methods of transportation.From the entry relative
Because of her dissatisfaction, she now disavows the merits of socialism.From the entry disavow
I was the boss's pet project, but was rejected on the merits.From the entry merits
The merits of the case favored the plaintiffs, but their procedural blunders set them back.From the entry merits
I was pretty evangelistic about the merits of working in a small team.From the entry evangelistic
I bestrode the courtroom entranceway, holding forth on my merits to the assembled press.From the entry hold forth
He deprecates any praise of his own merits.From the entry deprecate
The proposal should be discussed on its merits.From the entry on its merits
I know we’re never going to agree on the merits of vegetarianism, so let’s agree to disagree, shall we?From the entry agree to disagree
The severity of the offence merits a long prison sentence.From the entry severity
It was easy add his the new merit badge to his uniform because the patch had a hot seal backing.From the entry hot seal
MPG is considered a figure of merit when comparing fuel economy of cars, but it doesn't address cost or reliability.From the entry figure of merit
While Stern chastised Vogel for on Thursday calling the Heat "the biggest flopping team in the NBA," he did intimate that he sees merit in the sentiment.From the entry flop
It has been the champion of this, because it spotted the merit.2025 July 23, Paul Clifton, “Air force: drones' developing railway role”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 31. From the entry trendsetter
Whether he got in on merit is a whole other question.2025 April 21, Gail Collins, Bret Stephens, “Only 1,370 Days to Go”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry Penn
The importance of the mountain region merits developing a separate climate change risk profile.2022, Asian Development Bank, Climate Change Risk Profile of the Mountain Region in Sri Lanka. From the entry risk profile
Kelly genuinely believes his views about the relative merits of various therapies are correct.2021 February 2, Katharine Murphy, The Guardian. From the entry narrowcasting
As a sentiment, then, agential anger evaluates its object as “angersome,” as meriting anger.2015, David Shoemaker, Responsibility from the Margins. From the entry angersome
He could choose anything indifferent to, or even in spite of, its aesthetic merits.2014, Eva Diaz, The Experimenters: Chance and Design at Black Mountain College. From the entry nominative
The limitations of eutelic organisms illustrate the merits of the normal plan of reproduction by cell division.2014, Jean Brachet, Alfred E. Mirsky, Meiosis and Mitosis: Biochemistry, Physiology, Morphology. From the entry eutelic
The merits and limitations of Kyoto have been subject to great discussion.2013, Stewart Lockie, David A. Sonnenfeld, Dana R. Fisher, Routledge International Handbook of Social and Environmental Change, Routledge…. From the entry Kyoto
His actions provide a blueprint for crisis control that merits attention today.2013, Neil Shafer, Tom Sheehan, Panic Scrip of 1893, 1907 and 1914, page 337. From the entry scrip
It certainly had merit as a punkish shouter with its machine-gun-spatter underbeat.2013, James Arena, First Ladies of Disco, page 53. From the entry shouter
Some of it is merited, and for some of it, they were swiftboated.2013 January 7, Sam Thielman, “The Man From Oz Finds Religion”, in Adweek. From the entry swiftboat
Most great book lists concentrate on works of the highest literary or scholarly merit.2012 June 21, Michael Dirda, “Library of Congress issues list of ‘Books that Shaped America’”, in The Washington Post (Style section)…. From the entry Mount Everest
The honor of becoming a webelo scout was a distinct kind of merit badge.2012 November 19, Robert Colacurcio PhD, Real Presence: a Method for Finding God in All Things, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 10. From the entry Webelo
Nevertheless, there was some substance to the notion that acclaim and merit were coefficient.2005, Mathew Callahan, Boff Whalley, The Trouble with Music, page 12. From the entry coefficient
German Jew? etc. for this information has merit for detectiving the papers.1998 January 4, jeanne khan, quoting Mr. G., “sources for poems/disc. of G and J/your”, in rec.arts.poems (Usenet). From the entry detective
The UK, for example, believed that its wider trading links merited special consideration.1997, Christopher Preston, “Conclusion: Can the Classical Method Survive?”, in Enlargement and Integration in the European Union, London…. From the entry acquis
Of course, this whole method of measuring architextural merit is pretty suspect.1989 November 4, Preston Briggs, “Unsafe at any speed”, in comp.arch (Usenet), retrieved 01 Jun 2022. From the entry architextural

Meaning of merit

noun A claim to commendation or a reward.
noun A mark or token of approbation or to recognize excellence.
noun Something deserving or worthy of positive recognition or reward.

Full definition of merit

Questions about merit in a sentence

How do you use merit in a sentence?: Merit is used as a noun and verb. For example: “For her good performance in the examination, her teacher gave her ten merits.”
What is a short sentence with merit?: “Her performance merited wild applause.”
What does merit mean?: Merit means a claim to commendation or a reward.

Adapted from Wiktionary: merit (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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