How to Use convulsive in a Sentence
convulsive
adjective-
The rate of these changes from an ecologist's point of view is convulsive.
—Matt Simon, WIRED, 25 May 2018
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But by now there must be a sort of convulsive fatalism.
—Jon Wertheim, SI.com, 9 Aug. 2017
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But it had been replaced by a wave of convulsive chills that persisted for two hours.
—New York Times, 21 Jan. 2021
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There were winners and losers, and their story is one of convulsive struggle.
—Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 24 Jan. 2020
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While the various cases have yet to go to trial, the scandal has already endured its share of convulsive and strange twists.
—Jake Fischer and Jon Wertheim, SI.com, 23 May 2018
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Jean drifts through the film in a convulsive trance of intensity that’s a whisper away from traumatized.
—Nick Romano, EW.com, 5 June 2019
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This has been true since last March, and the convulsive spread of the delta variant shows that deciding how to navigate the social landscape is as volatile as ever.
—San Francisco Chronicle, 6 Aug. 2021
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On the evening of the reunion, as locals continued to ululate and dance to a convulsive local beat called lakubukubu, Ms. Amony watched from afar.
—John Okot, The Christian Science Monitor, 15 Apr. 2020
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Those who took cannabadiol cut their median number of convulsive seizures per month in half, from 12 to six.
—C. Michael White, Philly.com, 12 Jan. 2018
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Though this bureaucratic rite takes place every time a new party occupies the White House, the convulsive turnover that took place in 2017 made the shift far more pronounced.
—James Hohmann, Washington Post, 26 Mar. 2018
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The story of modern Iran has been one of convulsive political and social change.
—Eve Bower, CNN, 4 Oct. 2019
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McCartney has performed here before, of course, with the Beatles before a convulsive crowd at what was then called the Civic Center in 1964.
—Mike Klingaman, baltimoresun.com, 3 Mar. 2022
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Any, any of those would have been better than the violence and the terror of drowning in the dark, the hunger then the convulsive need then the clawing murderous frenzy for air as salt water filled my lungs.
—Elisabeth Egan, chicagotribune.com, 10 June 2017
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There had not yet been convulsive protests, devolving into riots and killing.
—Star Tribune, 24 Feb. 2021
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To me, there was something convulsive about playing for five-plus and then deciding it all with a conventional first-to-seven, win-by-two tiebreak.
—Jon Wertheim, SI.com, 31 July 2019
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But for much of the past century Iran has been locked in a convulsive struggle between rulers wanting to maintain their prerogatives and the ruled seeking freedom.
—Reuel Marc Gerecht and, WSJ, 11 June 2018
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In between the inevitable waves of convulsive laughter, Wired.com correspondent John Abell will be live-tweeting @theunderwire from Thursday night’s show.
—Hugh Hart, WIRED, 15 Oct. 2009
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On the heels of a humbling year, the Oscars — usually a frothy night of self-congratulation — this year may feel more like a therapeutic rally for an industry in the midst of convulsive change.
—Jake Coyle, Anchorage Daily News, 25 Apr. 2021
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The term is musicological, describing the convulsive vocal cadence that took over pop thanks to them.
—Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 1 Nov. 2022
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Then there’s the racial reckoning fueled by centuries of fear and death visited unto Black people in America — and renewed by 2020′s convulsive events.
—Ted Anthony, chicagotribune.com, 27 Oct. 2020
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Mishra argues that the rest of the world is now going through the convulsive reaction to modernization that the West endured in the 19th and 20th centuries but has conveniently forgotten in the intervening years.
—Laura Miller, Slate Magazine, 13 Dec. 2017
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When big convulsive economic events happen, the implications tend to take years to play out, and spiral in unpredictable directions.
—Neil Irwin, New York Times, 16 Apr. 2020
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In Husain’s five paintings here, the epic and its resonant meaning to a convulsive Indian nation intertwine.
—Murray Whyte, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Jan. 2021
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Stoke Therapeutics said Monday that a higher dose of its experimental drug for epilepsy reduced the frequency of convulsive seizures in children with a rare form of the disease.
—Adam Feuerstein, STAT, 14 Nov. 2022
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The convulsive and taboo-busting comic has transformed over time into a still bitingly funny and progressive feminist voice.
—New York Times, 27 Apr. 2022
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In other words, a convulsive episode is not a definitive indication of epilepsy.
—Diana Apetauerova, Verywell Health, 24 July 2023
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Experts now know that those symptoms are common among people with convulsive ergotism, or ergot poisoning, which is caused by a fungus that can grow on wheat, rye, and other similar grains.
—Sarah Klein, Health.com, 2 Oct. 2017
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Sensing irritation in your nasal passages, your body releases special brain-signaling chemicals that then trigger a convulsive expulsion of air out of the nose and mouth at more than 30 miles per hour.
—Caroline Picard, Good Housekeeping, 8 Feb. 2019
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Nonetheless, the transition between the electric motor and gas engine is convulsive, and there's occasional lag when shifting.
—Connor Hoffman, Car and Driver, 24 June 2021
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If not beautiful, Varo’s escape from the violent chaos of Europe, via Morocco, was certainly convulsive and surely traumatic.
—Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2023
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'convulsive.' 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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