Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use upstart in a sentence

16 example sentences · noun, adjective, verb

Upstart means one who has suddenly gained wealth, power, or other prominence, but either has not received social acceptance or has become arrogant or presumptuous. Example: “His spacious quarters indicate his transition from backbench upstart to established member of the governing team.”

Examples of upstart by meaning

nounOne who has suddenly gained wealth, power, or other prominence, but either has not received social acceptance or has...

  • But electric vehicles and the batteries that made them run became ensnared in corporate scandals, fraud, and monopolistic corruption that shook the confidence of the nation and inspired automotive upstarts.2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion

More sentences with upstart

  • His spacious quarters indicate his transition from backbench upstart to established member of the governing team.From the entry backbench
  • The focus of Simpson’s ire was a spunky, young upstart, the plucky 39-year-old Chase Utley.2019, Mark Barry, BP staff, “Los Angeles Dodgers”, in Patrick Dubuque, Aaron Gleeman, Bret Sayre, editors, Baseball Prospectus 2019: The…. From the entry old man yelling at cloud
  • Digital upstarts like Buzzfeed and The Verge are relying on “long-form” editors to create big features.2013 December 12, James Bennet, “Against 'Long-Form Journalism'”, in James Bennet, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic…. From the entry renaissance
  • Meanwhile, traditional companies would be obliterated — "Amazoned" — by Internet upstarts.2001 November 18, Steve Lohr, “Gearhead Nation: A Time Out for Technophilia”, in The New York Times, page WK4. From the entry amazon
  • Why you upstart ignoramus! do you take me for an ironmonger?1981, John O'Keeffe, Frederick M. Link, The plays of John O'Keeffe - Volume 4, page 177. From the entry kennel-raker
  • Because democracy is not an upstart which is backed by no good pedigree and tradition.1960, Calcutta Review. From the entry taleful
  • That leaves plenty of room for the upstarts, who fit the chassis with electric motors, battery packs and software.2023 May 1, Kyle Stock, “Helping e-vans delilver: new subsidies can make battery-powered vans price-competitive with diesel versions”, in…. From the entry e-truck
  • The Dutchman, still overwhelmingly the man to beat, firmly denies the upstart challenger has got into his head.2019 December 8, Jonathan Liew, “Gerwyn Price: ‘I was painted as the pantomime villain of darts’”, in The Guardian. From the entry get into someone's head
  • Upstarts like the snack menu, with its little offerings of polpettine and deviled eggs, are encroaching from the flank.2007 December 5, Kim Severson, “Is the Entree Heading for Extinction?”, in New York Times. From the entry polpettine
  • Others believe big tech companies such as Google will quickly trounce the young upstarts, and that some of the new companies have little competitive advantage.2023 January 7, Erin Griffith, Cade Metz, “A New Area of A.I. Booms, Even Amid the Tech Gloom”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry trounce
  • Moreover, the upstart UK Independence Party (UKIP), which urged a 'Brixit,' seemed poised to attract significant numbers of Conservative and Labour voters.2014, Heinrich Best, John Higley, “Introduction”, in Heinrich Best, John Higley, editors, Political Elites in the Transatlantic Crisis…. From the entry Brixit
  • The particular kind of chaos that is created by the hospitality of a rich upstart has perhaps never been so accurately and outrageously described.1911, G. K. Chesterton, “Our Mutual Friend”, in Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens, London: J. M. Dent & Sons…. From the entry swell mob
  • Should we worry about a world of stodgy multicentenarians who will resist the innovations of ninety-something upstarts and perhaps ban the begetting of pesky children altogether?2018, Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, →ISBN. From the entry multicentenarian
  • Nevertheless, his attitude to such plebeian upstarts was lofty and impercipient: not having been introduced to them, he had not the pleasure of their acquaintance, so to speak.1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin, published 2013, page 215. From the entry impercipient
  • The captain was an upstart, a product of the democratic idea operating upon the poor white man, the descendant of the indentured bondservant and the socially unfit.1901, Charles W. Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition. From the entry bondservant

Meaning of upstart

  1. noun One who has suddenly gained wealth, power, or other prominence, but either has not received social acceptance or has become arrogant or presumptuous.
  2. noun The meadow saffron.
  3. adjective Acting like a parvenu.

Full definition of upstart

Questions about upstart in a sentence

How do you use upstart in a sentence?
Upstart is used as a noun, adjective and verb. For example: “His spacious quarters indicate his transition from backbench upstart to established member of the governing team.”
What is a short sentence with upstart?
“Why you upstart ignoramus! do you take me for an ironmonger?”
What does upstart mean?
Upstart means one who has suddenly gained wealth, power, or other prominence, but either has not received social acceptance or has become arrogant or presumptuous.

Source and license

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