How to use respectability in a sentence
22 example sentences · noun
Respectability means the quality of being respectable. Example: “The village shop seemed to be a bastion of respectability but those in the know could obtain some very questionable under-the-counter material.”
Examples of respectability by meaning
nounThe quality of being respectable.
- Though he knew it not, the subtle spirit of vagabondage had taken possession of his soul, and even of his hat, which seemed suddenly to have lost its original respectability, and acquired an air of dissoluteness.1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 76
More sentences with respectability
- The village shop seemed to be a bastion of respectability but those in the know could obtain some very questionable under-the-counter material.From the entry under-the-counter
- The burden of judgment imposed by the politics of respectability can easily colonize black minds.2017, Christopher J. Lebron, The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea, →ISBN. From the entry colonize
- For even the grandest of grandes horizontales, respectability was a luxury that remained tantalisingly out of reach.2015 December 7, Jane Shilling, The Telegraph. From the entry grande horizontale
- This was despite the knowledge that a woman who married an expiree lost her claim to respectability.1985, University of Western Australia, Westerly, volume 30, page 248. From the entry expiree
- British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins.2013 August 10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848. From the entry feel
- The American folk hero Woody Guthrie will be honored at the Kennedy Center, but rabble-rousing, not respectability, was his goal.2012 August 18, Lawrence Downes, “As Woody Turns 100, We Protest Too Little”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Apr 2013. From the entry folk hero
- In the orchard all attempts to maintain respectability had been abandoned; nettles and rank grass grew high around the fruit trees.1997, Quentin Bell, Virginia Nicholson, Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden, New York: Henry Holt and Company, page 126. From the entry quarandine
- Though a pattern of respectability, he can grow genial in his cups, or as he would say “a wee tozy-mozy."1968, Cornelius Weygandt, A Century of the English Novel. From the entry tozy-mozy
- Ineffable sarcasm underlined the word 'bride', suggesting that Mrs Mudge must be a drab who had married for respectability.1957, Frank Swinnerton, The Woman from Sicily, London: Hutchinson, →OCLC, page 194. From the entry drab
- Religion is everywhere a gauge of respectability. . . .1930, H. L. Mencken, Treatise on the Gods, published 2006, →ISBN, pages 174–5. From the entry spookish
- Queer spaces often give rise to a “queernormativity” premised on an “alternative respectability” that dictates how to be the “right” kind of queer.2020, Ellen Lamont, The Mating Game: How Gender Still Shapes How We Date, page 113. From the entry queernormativity
- In addition it calls into question the common assumption that the holocaust destroyed British anti-Semitism or at least pushed it beyond the pale of respectability.2012, Tony Kushner, Kenneth Lunn, The Politics of Marginality: Race, the Radical Right and Minorities in Twentieth Century Britain, page 143. From the entry beyond the pale
- Darwinism and related theories in anthropology and sociology helped to give an aura of respectability to racism in both Europe and America.1993 [1972], Norman Coombs, The Black Experience in America. From the entry aura
- Edgerton, a high class, reputable lawyer, was called in of counsel from another city to lend respectability to the crooked, unprincipled, blackmailing pettifogger, Hughes."1926 June 28, “National Affairs: Blind Mans Huff”, in Time. From the entry pettifogger
- And now he told the members of Local Leesville what he thought of those tea-party revolutionists who pandered to the respectability of a church-ridden community.1919, Upton Sinclair, Jimmie Higgins, Pasadena, Chapter III, Part II, p. 27. From the entry church-ridden
- As a banker from a banking family with a tradition founded on trust and respectability that goes back three hundred years, I was unseated by her threats.2011, John Nathan, A Bintel Brif: A Novel, Bloomington, Ind.: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 216. From the entry unseat
- He must assume that his grey hair is giving him access to the age of respectability, and he hopes thus by association unobtrusively to identify with the great wordmasters.1989, Breyten Breytenbach, Memory of Snow and of Dust, New York, N.Y.: Farrar Straus Giroux, →ISBN, page 28. From the entry wordmaster
- Even the recognition that commess is a pervasive feature of village life does not affect the judgment that it is alien to respectability, to mainstream morality and behavioral propriety.1987, Hymie Rubenstein, Coping with poverty: adaptive strategies in a Caribbean village. From the entry commess
- The intense hostility expressed by the scientific creationists toward the flat-earthers does not extend to the geocentrists, who hover on the edge of respectability among scientific creationists.1981, Robert Schadewald, “Scientific Creationism, Geocentricity and the Flat Earth: These three movements have more in common than they…. From the entry geocentrist
- More generally, the fact that a pregnant bride does not have a full white wedding serves to confirm the respectability and ‘virginity’ of those who do.1978, Marie P. Corbin, The Couple, page 71. From the entry white wedding
- He was one of the first significant private buyers of wool in New Zealand, playing a major part in bringing respectability to what at first was a very diverse group.1998, Wool: Volume 8, Issue 10, as published by the Massey Wool Association. From the entry dag
Meaning of respectability
- noun The quality of being respectable.
- noun The class of respectable people.
Questions about respectability in a sentence
- How do you use respectability in a sentence?
- Respectability is used as a noun. For example: “The village shop seemed to be a bastion of respectability but those in the know could obtain some very questionable under-the-counter material.”
- What is a short sentence with respectability?
- “Religion is everywhere a gauge of respectability. . . .”
- What does respectability mean?
- Respectability means the quality of being respectable.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: respectability (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 respectability in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/respectability. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
