How to Use clannish in a Sentence
clannish
adjective- The college faculty can be pretty clannish, so it's difficult to be an outsider there.
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They were drawn as lazy, clannish, unclean, drunken brawlers who wallowed in crime and bred like rats.
—Michael Harriot, The Root, 17 Mar. 2018
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The West Side – solid and loyal, traditional and clannish – takes care of its own.
—Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 5 Aug. 2017
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For much of the world, Mr. Varadkar is a symbol of Ireland’s leap from its clannish, Catholic past to a tolerant, multiracial modernity.
—Mark Landler, New York Times, 6 Feb. 2020
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At the same time, millennia of dynastic rule have taught the Chinese a thing or two about the tribal tendencies of the ruling class, as well as about clannish behavior at all levels of society.
—Jiayang Fan, The New Yorker, 19 May 2017
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That in-on-the-joke mentality, as well as the clannish nature of streetwear cool, has created a decades-long frenzy surrounding Supreme’s weekly releases.
—Lauren Schwartzberg, WIRED, 25 May 2017
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The chairman’s power endures amid a culture of sycophancy and clannish distrust of anyone outside his inner circle of party bosses.
—Frank Scaturro, National Review, 13 July 2017
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At the same time, its historical imagination is clannish.
—Nikil Saval, The New Republic, 26 Oct. 2020
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Think Jeronimo Yanez, Philando Castile’s killer, and see how young officers fare in these toxic, clannish environments.
—Cynthia Gomez Engoulou, Star Tribune, 19 Nov. 2020
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The Oulipo, a diverse if clannish guild that has somehow managed to survive for fifty-eight years, has included both major writers and pedantic hobbyists, and inspired work along the entire range of its members’ capabilities.
—Luc Sante, Harper's magazine, 10 Jan. 2019
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At first, Edge’s noisy entourage and naive enthusiasm irritated the park’s rather shy and clannish community of bird enthusiasts.
—Melissa Groo, Smithsonian Magazine, 16 Mar. 2021
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At a time when music has become a clannish activity, the age range, from teens to octogenarian and possibly beyond, was exceptional.
—Mark Swed, latimes.com, 23 May 2018
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The mine companies did, however, pour funding into excellent schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure, and Ely’s mix of clannish immigrants implanted a lasting culture of saunas and stable family life.
—Jack Brook, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 July 2020
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This clannish pocket of Roseland was packed with first- and second- generation homeowners willing to lend a hand with parenting responsibilities, especially to struggling neighbors.
—Madeline Buckley, chicagotribune.com, 29 Aug. 2019
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Assortative mating inputs wealth, social connections, and clannish expertise to gain its children entry to private schools, organized extracurriculars, and all sorts of socio-economic advantages.
—Rich Benjamin, Esquire, 13 Sep. 2017
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'clannish.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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