How to use reactionary in a sentence
37 example sentences · adjective, noun
Reactionary means extremely conservative; opposing revolution (such as the French Revolution); favoring a return to a "golden age" of the past. Example: “Within certain MAGA circles, to criticize someone for being too racist or reactionary is a betrayal, signaling an acceptance of the very liberal morality that the movement’s vanguard seeks to destroy.”
Examples of reactionary by meaning
adjectiveExtremely conservative; opposing revolution (such as the French Revolution); favoring a return to a "golden age" of the...
- Within certain MAGA circles, to criticize someone for being too racist or reactionary is a betrayal, signaling an acceptance of the very liberal morality that the movement’s vanguard seeks to destroy.2025 November 4, Michelle Goldberg, “Nick Fuentes Is Becoming Charlie Kirk’s Successor”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New...
adjectiveOf, pertaining to, participating in, or inducing a chemical reaction.
- Psychiatry extends the theory into biology in the belief that all human behavior is nothing more than a series of reactionary chemical processes in the brain that determine pre-coded genetic responses built up from the conditioning of one’s environment.2013 April 11, Brandon Smith, “Are Individuals The Property Of The Collective?”, in Alt-Market, archived from the original on 05 Mar 2016
adjectiveIn reaction to; as a result of.
- The regulator noted that reduced service levels and passenger numbers helped deliver strong performance, with fewer reactionary delays.2020 December 16, “Network News: ORR praises Network Rail's response to pandemic”, in Rail, page 13
nounOne who opposes revolution, wanting to reverse it, favoring a return to a past golden age, often used derogatorily by...
- Hindu reactionaries, whose conception of a well-ordered society had not moved beyond the laws of Manu, fell into line for the moment with the intellectual products of the modern Indian University.1921, Valentine Chirol, India, Old and New
- If conservatives are pessimistic, reactionaries are apocalyptic.2017 April, Andrew Sullivan, “The Reactionary Temptation”, in New York Magazine, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2020
More sentences with reactionary
- Aspects of social conservatism that reactionary Christians and reactionary Muslims have in common explain why Western social conservatives' political opponents have sometimes called them Y'all Qaeda.From the entry social conservatism
- America in the fifties also had its share of reactionary political violence.2025 August 5, Danny Goldberg, “A Guest Post By Danny Goldberg: Culture, Empathy And Resistance”, in DownWithTyranny, archived from the…. From the entry fifties
- Similarily, the femosphere possesses intellectual mouthpieces who cloak reactionary perspectives with an intellectual and scientific façade.2025, Cécile Smmons, CTRL HATE DELETE: The New Anti-Feminist Backlash and How We Fight It, unnumbered page. From the entry femosphere
- Reactionary motifs are chic: Trump hats and “tradwife” frocks, monarchist and anti-feminist sentiments.2022 August 9, Julia Yost, “New York’s Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry tradwife
- It could even include reactionary bots to craft a digital world of opposing opinions.2022 September 24, Isaiah McCall, “"The Dead Internet Theory" is New and Spreading Everywhere”, in Medium, archived from the original on…. From the entry dead internet theory
- Reactionary redneckism - you are (I think) in the wrong country.2020 August 22, geoff, “Hamilton Leading BLM Movement In F1”, in rec.autos.sport.f1 (Usenet), archived from the original on 20 Jul 2026. From the entry Trumpmerica
- The fear of being "dotcommed” was a powerful catalyst creating a reactionary environment.2001, Rick G. Sherland, E-business & Internet infrastructure software: United States, page 2. From the entry dotcom
- To accuse a movement of being reactionary, we must understand what is meant by reactionaryism.2000, Advocate of Dialogue, →ISBN, page 165. From the entry reactionaryism
- We find ourselves once again fighting a reactionary on his terms.1978 December 9, Mitzel, “Post-Briggs Blues”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 20, page 5. From the entry faddism
- A reactionary muddlehead who waves the feminist banner does not thereby cease to be a reactionary muddlehead.1978 April 1, John Lauritsen, “Praising Mitzel”, in Gay Community News, page 4. From the entry muddlehead
- On February 7, the reactionaries massacred the workers at the station.[1974 April, “Wuhan—A City of Revolutionary Tradition”, in China Reconstructs, volume XXIII, number 4, Peking, →OCLC, page 32, column 2. From the entry Jiang'an
- Chiuchuan region in Kansu Province was an expanse of desert land under the Kuomintang reactionary rule.1972 March 3 [1972 February 24], “A Good Spring Around Chiayukuan”, in Daily Report: People's Republic of China, volume I, number 44…. From the entry Chiayukuan
- One year the Kuomintang reactionaries pressganged men and Yang Kuo-hsiang was forced to leave his village.1971, “A Yi Flight Commander”, in Eastern Horizon, volume X, number 4, Hong Kong: Eastern Horizon Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 46. From the entry Yuhsi
- Green himself was reactionary, a preëmptioner who wanted strengthening of these laws alone.1917, Gertrude S. Mathews, James T. DuBois, Galusha A. Grow, Father of the Homestead Law, page 210. From the entry preëmptioner
- In fact, she regarded this slogan, which was popular at the time, as little else than a reactionary escape.2015, Liisi Keedus, The Crisis of German Historicism: The Early Political Thought of Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss, Cambridge University…. From the entry federationalism
- To erase the Soviet dimension of the Russian identity would be a reactionary and futile attempt to demodernize Russia.2013, Boris Groys, History Becomes Form: Moscow Conceptualism, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 75. From the entry demodernize
- The injunction also became a pretext for yet another round of vituperative cant from Idaho’s reactionary congressional delegation.2008 August 16, Jeffrey St. Clair, “Last Stand in the Big Woods”, in CounterPunch. From the entry vituperative
- Reactionary disinhibited inhibition reallocates arcanities in unpopularistic ismism.1977, Worm Runner’s Digest, page 93. From the entry arcanity
- It is a forceful criticism of the doctrines of Confucius and Mencius and the reactionary ideology on education preached by them.1974 March 7 [1974 March 2], “Kirin Radio Reports Student's Letter, Kirin Daily Notes on Education”, in Daily Report: People's Republic of…. From the entry Wangching
- The reactionary elements in the country have had their days in poisoning the minds of most of the city people.1954, G. K. Puranik, Rural India - Volume 17, page 291. From the entry languagism
- The consensus—certainly among the great and the good of Cambridge, Massachusetts—was that he was an ultranationalist, a reactionary, and, above all, an ingrate.2024 February 20, Eliot A. Cohen, “Solzhenitsyn’s Warning”, in The Atlantic. From the entry ingrate
- As a constituent community of the ‘femosphere’, we argue that Trufemcels mirrored many of the bleak affects and reactionary, fatalistic, ‘pilled’ discourses of the manosphere.2024, Jacob Johanssen, Jilly Boyce Kay, “From femcels to 'femcelcore': Women’s involuntary celibacy and the rise of heteronihilism”, in…. From the entry femosphere
- From there, it was only a short step to “Kekism,” at once a joke religion and a precursor of the reactionary radicalization to follow.2020, Tara Isabella Burton, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World, unnumbered page. From the entry radicalization
- We have Stephen Bannon, the former head of Breitbart known for his open ties to white supremacists, anti-Semites, and foreign reactionaries in France and Russia.2016 November 18, Jamelle Bouie, “Government by the Worst Men”, in Slate. From the entry svengali
- With the election of George Bush this country has apparently chosen an answer to the AIDS crisis consisting of the most reactionary social principles.1988 December 18, Jack Ben-Levi, “The Death And Birth Of Families”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 23, page 5. From the entry slap in the face
- He was working for us on the sly at the Herald-Traveler-Record-American (before it shortened its topheavy name), then as now a reactionary, homophobic rag.1984 December 15, John Kyper, “Remembering David Stryker”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 22, page 5. From the entry on the sly
- (Mao's) reliance on simplistic Soviet interpretations was reflected in his dismissal of Hitler as "a mere will-less puppet of the reactionary capitalists."China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War, Stanford University Press, 1968, →ISBN, pages 211–. From the entry simplistic
- Once, at the exit to a movie house in Hopei province's Mi-yün county, forty-one reactionary posters were found, and their contents were extremely reactionary.[1968 [1958], Jerome Alan Cohen, quoting Li Lo, “The Definition of Criminal Conduct”, in The Criminal Process in the People's Republic of…. From the entry Miyun
- Several of three occupations have little appeal for women—but I dare say that some day an indubitably clever auctioneeress will mark that statement as reactionary.1918, American Shorthorn Breeder’s Association, The Shorthorn in America, page 14, column 3. From the entry auctioneeress
- And I mention it because it’s a big part of who I am and, unlike in the big bad reactionary world, straightness is not presumed amongst kinky women.2008 March 18, “On Being Straight”, in Bitchy Jones's Diary. From the entry hetness
- It was politically correct also from the standpoint of the need to overthrow the three reactionary monarchies of Europe—that of Russia, of Germany and of Austria-Hungary.1969, Y. F. Sopin, chapter 5, in The Bolshevik Party's Struggle Against Trotskyism, page 214. From the entry politically correct
- Moreover, the reactionary economic and political forces in south Korea show little sympathy with the commission meetings now being held in an effort to achieve American-Russian rapprochement.1947 September 10, Thoburn T. Brumbaugh, “Soviet Nightmare in Korea”, in The Christian Century, volume LXIV, number 37, Chicago: Christian…. From the entry rapprochement
Meaning of reactionary
- adjective Extremely conservative; opposing revolution (such as the French Revolution); favoring a return to a "golden age" of the past.
- adjective Of, pertaining to, participating in, or inducing a chemical reaction.
- adjective In reaction to; as a result of.
Questions about reactionary in a sentence
- How do you use reactionary in a sentence?
- Reactionary is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Within certain MAGA circles, to criticize someone for being too racist or reactionary is a betrayal, signaling an acceptance of the very liberal morality that the movement’s vanguard seeks to destroy.”
- What is a short sentence with reactionary?
- “If conservatives are pessimistic, reactionaries are apocalyptic.”
- What does reactionary mean?
- Reactionary means extremely conservative; opposing revolution (such as the French Revolution); favoring a return to a "golden age" of the past.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: reactionary (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 reactionary in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/reactionary. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
