How to Use knee-jerk in a Sentence
knee-jerk
adjective-
But what about the show’s own knee-jerk hatred of the public?
— Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 26 June 2023 -
Ed could tell that Joe knew his knee-jerk reaction to check his phone was the wrong thing to do.
— Phil Blair, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 May 2023 -
One of the hazards of a certain age is the knee-jerk tendency to reminisce on the good ol’ days.
— Kevin Sherrington, Dallas News, 17 Mar. 2023 -
But that does not indicate knee-jerk reactions on the part of Tunisians.
— Michael Robbins, Foreign Affairs, 14 Dec. 2023 -
The knee-jerk response would be to say that nothing has really changed.
— Fidel Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 25 May 2023 -
Since Aries tends to be impatient, an Aries Moon may be prone to knee-jerk reactions.
— Women's Health, 12 May 2023 -
In his view, the ban is the culmination of nearly two years of him and his team scrutinizing the app, not some knee-jerk move.
— Sapna Maheshwari, New York Times, 2 Sep. 2023 -
That makes sense from an emotional, knee-jerk standpoint.
— Mark Zeigler, San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 July 2023 -
What happened in the past may no longer apply to what will happen in the future, and you’re still left making knee-jerk decisions and hoping for the best.
— Rhett Power, Forbes, 18 Feb. 2024 -
Students came for zombies but stayed for the chance to learn more about themselves and their knee-jerk reactions to catastrophe, Stutzky said.
— Scottie Andrew, CNN, 13 Mar. 2023 -
So when the pandemic hit, my knee-jerk reaction was to just immerse myself in music and work.
— William E. Ketchum Iii, Billboard, 5 Apr. 2023 -
As knee-jerk reactions to AI faded over the course of the year, new theories cropped up about AI’s trajectory.
— Chloe Berger, Fortune, 25 Mar. 2024 -
None of that might stem the knee-jerk opposition to the four-day week among businesses and their water carriers on Capitol Hill.
— Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 21 Mar. 2024 -
Such a knee-jerk response reflects deep ignorance of the art and conflict that Little Richard epitomized.
— Armond White, National Review, 21 Apr. 2023 -
There would be no crying about civilian deaths in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, no knee-jerk second-guessing of the Bush administration.
— Jim Rutenberg, New York Times, 6 Apr. 2023 -
But there’s a bit more nuance to what looks like a knee-jerk response to the financial rocket fuel of low interest rates, analysts say.
— Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, 24 Mar. 2024 -
My knee-jerk reaction was to call them sellouts, or deluded, as many progressives would.
— Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2023 -
The most interesting thread of The Cottage involves Rustin’s trying to work against the knee-jerk sexism of the genre as Sylvia slowly discovers that her happiness shouldn’t depend on the men around her.
— Vulture, 24 July 2023 -
Is this sometimes tongue-and-cheek or knee-jerk militancy a disguise for the pursuit of the American dream, which is exported worldwide by way of Black music?
— Harmony Holiday, Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2023 -
The term is derisive and refers to local people who have a negative knee-jerk reaction to any project near their community.
— Justin Worland, TIME, 23 Oct. 2023 -
And, for anyone who has a knee-jerk reaction of assuming that means everyone should be exactly the same, no, of course not, as that is never possible.
— Erik Sherman, Forbes, 26 Mar. 2023 -
But debate has raged over the effectiveness of the emergency measures that some described as a knee-jerk response to complex social issues.
— Hilary Whiteman, CNN, 29 Mar. 2024 -
When cholesterol stepped into the spotlight as something bad that clogs your arteries, there was a knee-jerk response to quit eating foods high in cholesterol like egg yolks, shellfish, organ meats, etc.
— Bryant Stamford, The Courier-Journal, 29 Feb. 2024 -
His seemingly knee-jerk change kept many people on Twitter from seeing content on the platform after as little as 10 minutes.
— Jennifer Jolly, USA TODAY, 20 July 2023 -
The Times received knee-jerk assessments of the situation from five front-office executives and agents Thursday.
— Jorge Castillo, Los Angeles Times, 24 Aug. 2023 -
Human rights campaigners in Pakistan are cautioning against a knee-jerk reaction from the government.
— Hasan Ali, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 Oct. 2023 -
In your insecure, early stages of development, your knee-jerk reaction when an issue is called out, may be to justify your methods, deflect from the point, or shift blame elsewhere.
— Ebony Flake, Essence, 5 Feb. 2024 -
Either way, the market’s knee-jerk reaction to CFO departures is that they are normally associated with bad news.
— Bysheryl Estrada, Fortune, 7 Aug. 2023 -
After layoffs, the knee-jerk reaction is for companies to discourage people from discussing what happened.
— Lila MacLellan, Fortune, 20 Mar. 2023 -
At a time when violent crime is at a generational peak, when the knee-jerk response to young criminals is to lock ’em up, Yao is asking us to consider whether maximum sentencing for young offenders is the answer.
— Petula Dvorak, Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2024
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'knee-jerk.' 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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