Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

But when you approach restaurant visits prescriptively, you miss out on critical touch points with the staff that help build rapport.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 3, 2026

We promptly fled to another coffee shop — which played prescriptively gentle jazz — where we “soothed” our nerves over another round of caffeinated beverages.

From Salon • Nov. 13, 2023

“We sort of prescriptively said, ‘Pull your navel to your spine,’ ” she said, referring to the common exercise instruction.

From Washington Post • Nov. 12, 2021

Though he sometimes wrote prescriptively from — or for — the left, over all he managed the neat trick of neither hiding his political viewpoint in his work nor funneling his work through it.

From New York Times • Jul. 15, 2014

Truths once accepted as "self-evident," since become awkward of acceptance, were ever thus pettifogged out of the path, and fundamental principles have in this way prescriptively been tampered with.

From "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" by Adams, Charles Francis