How to use subversive in a sentence
16 example sentences · adjective, noun
Subversive means intending to subvert, overturn, undermine or debase. Example: “The show's wholesome, if slyly subversive, tone makes recontextualizing those faces all the funnier."”
More sentences with subversive
- The show's wholesome, if slyly subversive, tone makes recontextualizing those faces all the funnier."2018 November 27, tmc...@gmail.com, “SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg's legacy lives on in countless internet memes”, in…. From the entry memery
- TAB is used with a certain subversive humour, to challenge the security of the 'able-bodied' position.[2014, Deborah Marks, Disability: Controversial Debates and Psychosocial Perspectives, page 18. From the entry temporarily able-bodied
- Baker’s ostentatious laid-backness subversive, to imbue it with so much bad-boy allure.2007 June 3, Terrence Rafferty, “A Jazzman So Cool You Want Him Frozen at His Peak”, in New York Times. From the entry glamorizer
- As a symbol of the “hybrid margin,” pidgin is the subversive lect of the illiterati.2007, Chantal J. Zabus, The African Palimpsest, page 86. From the entry illiterati
- Critics substantiate that this overrepresentation influences content with progressive ideologies, including anti-traditional and diversity-focused themes some view as subversive."2025 July 8, Effie Webb, “Grok 3 got a 'politically incorrect' update ahead of Grok 4's launch”, in Business Insider. From the entry overrepresentation
- A classic strategy for achieving this is to proclaim ideas so shocking and subversive that anything less radical suddenly sounds sensible.2017, Elizabeth Manton, transl., “epilogue”, in Utopia for Realists, Kindle edition, Bloomsbury Publishing, translation of Gratis geld…. From the entry Overton window
- The three of us would lahdidah to the Luxembourg Gardens, where we read Alchemy the French canon of subversive lit.2015, Bruce Bauman, Broken Sleep, Other Press, LLC, →ISBN. From the entry flaneur
- We have to go under ground to find out who we are as women; self-knowledge requires that we be psychologically subversive.2002, Lyn Cowan, “Women and the land: Imagination and reality”, in Tracking the White Rabbit: A Subversive View of Modern Culture, Hove…. From the entry under ground
- Later that month, the principal called me into his office, offered some pleasantries and a Co'-Cola, then asked: “Son, are you a subversive?”2011, Stephen King, 11/22/63, page 286. From the entry Co-Cola
- In the best circumstances, he was devastatingly witty and slyly subversive; in the worst, he was merely a Tonto with an Afro.2007, Jabari Asim, The N word: who can say it, who shouldn't, and why, page 185. From the entry tonto
- As countersubversives saw it, queer artists worked hand in hand (literally, it seemed) with political subversives while their decadent art undermined America's cultural offensive.2007, Michael S. Sherry, Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy. From the entry countersubversive
- And what a strange souvenir it is of its time: when mainstreamers desperate to save a newspaper clung for dear life to subversive wit!1991 February 8, Michael Miner, “Sun-Times Picks a Critic/Skip in Time”, in Chicago Reader. From the entry mainstreamer
- Our Human Rights Town Hall calls out Islamic supremacist groups in America to cease and desist their subversive activity under the guise of 'civil rights' or Shariaphobia.2012, "jwshe", AFDI/SIOA, FMU to Host "Summer Night for Human Rights" in Defense of Iranian Pastor Sentenced to Death for Leaving Islam…. From the entry Shariaphobia
- She said the narcotics trade also is providing Chinese Communist leaders with a major source of revenue for use in carrying out their subversive, revolutionary tactics in other countries.1975 March 9, “Mme. Chiang warns against detente”, in Free China Weekly, volume XVI, number 9, Taipei, page 1. From the entry macao
- Thai officials were afraid that Sibsongpanna would be a center where pro-Communist Thai in Southeast Asia would go and where subversive agitation could be directed against outside legitimate governments.1958, Russell H. Fifield, The Diplomacy of Southeast Asia: 1945-1958, New York: Harper & Brothers, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 263. From the entry Thai
- We will now continue the conviction of the textbookmamkers." shouted the Walrus, acting as judge; "we indict the textbooks for being too gumptious, too subversive, too easy, and too difficult.1962, The Nation's Schools, volume 70, page 77. From the entry gumptious
Meaning of subversive
- adjective Intending to subvert, overturn, undermine or debase.
- noun A radical supporter of political or social revolution.
- noun One who subverts, a saboteur, provocateur, or propagandist.
Questions about subversive in a sentence
- How do you use subversive in a sentence?
- Subversive is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The show's wholesome, if slyly subversive, tone makes recontextualizing those faces all the funnier."”
- What is a short sentence with subversive?
- “Baker’s ostentatious laid-backness subversive, to imbue it with so much bad-boy allure.”
- What does subversive mean?
- Subversive means intending to subvert, overturn, undermine or debase.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: subversive (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 subversive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/subversive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
