How to Use discursive in a Sentence

discursive

adjective

• There’s no doubt about the fact that the state has less control of the discursive realm.
  — Washington Post, 10 May 2017
• Written in a rich, discursive style and yet plain-spoken, the fact-laden thousand pages of Robert K. Massie’s book race by and draw you in.
  — WSJ, 27 Oct. 2017
• Honestly, the speech could be less free and less discursive.
  — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 15 Mar. 2018
• The book has a discursive quality and seems bloated, in need of a tighter edit.
  — Julia M. Klein, chicagotribune.com, 6 Sep. 2017
• Pelosi’s discursive style of speaking does not lend itself to sound bites.
  — Matthew Yglesias, Vox, 20 Nov. 2018
• Trump’s response is so discursive that the Journal attempts to change the subject.
  — Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, 12 Jan. 2018
• The emails come to seem less like chapters in a novel than like installments of a discursive essay.
  — Caleb Crain, The Atlantic, 10 Aug. 2021
• News reports and quiet discussions on the subject waft through the movie like so much discursive haze.
  — K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 28 Oct. 2022
• But the Cello Concerto is even more discursive than that.
  — Peter Dobrin, Philly.com, 2 Feb. 2018
• Eventually, Gregory would return to the stage in a more discursive sort of act, in which the jokes were worked into the lecture.
  — Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 2 July 2021
• Her approach is discursive, yet precise — Proust kneeling bedside on the carpet of a dorm.
  — New York Times, 12 Oct. 2021
• Yet, out of the film's loose, discursive structure, an expansive view of the subject's eclectic output, and of the thought that goes into each new piece, comes together.
  — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2017
• We should still be braced for a more discursive bot model to return—less of a sultry homewrecker and more of a sober therapist, perhaps, but return all the same.
  — Katherine Cross, WIRED, 17 Mar. 2023
• Its zigs and zags, its discursive ramblings and its journeys away from the character who ought to hold our attention had the jaggedness of human thought.
  — Daniel D'addario, Variety, 7 Nov. 2022
• For Macron, who appears to be wheeling right ahead of presidential elections next year, the challenge is broader and discursive.
  — Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2021
• What changed in the years since the beginning of the #MeToo movement is the presumption that strong enough discursive pushback might indeed lead to actual banishment.
  — Jon Caramanica, New York Times, 2 Mar. 2024
• In this long, discursive piece, which covers a number of topics, from jazz to orgasms and the threat of atomic destruction, Mailer argues that the only way for a thinking white man to be is black.
  — Hilton Als, The New Yorker, 3 Feb. 2020
• The demonstration began, and Ahmed spoke first, doing his best to distill his discursive style into something closer to call-and-response.
  — Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 2 Dec. 2023
• That said, Ai’s film becomes more digressive than discursive.
  — Irene Hsu, New Republic, 31 Oct. 2017
• The pacing is slow and discursive, as are Lynch’s films, but text doesn’t function as a film (like The Art Life) does, with its inclusion of visuals, sound, the molten quality of facial expressions.
  — Charlotte Shane, The New Republic, 26 June 2018
• Most of the episodes feature lengthy, clumsy bits of dialogue or monologue that feel ripped from the daily concerns — and the ranty, discursive way of talking at, not to, one’s followers — of social media.
  — Daniel D'addario, Variety, 9 Sep. 2021
• In their discursive world, good white ladies are not supposed to scream that Black lives matter or point out the bigotry inherent in a system of law enforcement that started with slave patrols.
  — Linda Tirado, The New Republic, 4 June 2020
• The trial has been read as the beginning of a discursive standoff in which the Israeli right argues for preëmptive violence and sees the left as willfully defenseless.
  — Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2023
• The story is all over the place, and is way too messy to be anything but true — Nanjiani wrote it with Gordon (now his wife), and made it with producer Judd Apatow, whose movies are known for being long and cluttered and discursive.
  — Gary Thompson, Philly.com, 5 July 2017
• Nunn tends to publish the more discursive material on Mondays and straighter restaurant writing on Fridays.
  — Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 8 Mar. 2023
• Lillian’s death in 2015 seems to have been a primary catalyst for this garrulous and discursive memoir.
  — Dwight Garner, New York Times, 13 June 2017
• Ultimately, his discursive comments on vampires and werewolves may have actually been more helpful than not—and that says a whole lot about this race’s tone.
  — Philip Elliott, Time, 6 Dec. 2022
• Streisand’s chatty, discursive presence hums on every page.
  — Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 14 Nov. 2023
• The second half of the book is a non-linear, eclectic romp through the early history of technology, and readers will have to surrender to Mr. Smith’s often-discursive writing style.
  — Christine Rosen, WSJ, 14 Mar. 2022
• Long sections about her college off-Broadway work and her first big break can seem discursive, especially when parts start to zigzag between different eras in India’s still-quite-young life.
  — Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 2024

Last Updated: 7 Dec 2024