How to Use performative in a Sentence

performative

adjective

• What the speech boiled down to is to shine a light on the justice system and that change just can't be performative.
  — Alamin Yohannes, EW.com, 24 Jan. 2023
• Taking the stage in a red gown, Lee showcased the single with a live band and a performative sense of flair.
  — Emily Zemler, Rolling Stone, 8 Dec. 2023
• There’s the performative aspect of it, but no one lets that get in the way of the spirit of the competition.
  — John Shea, San Francisco Chronicle, 18 Sep. 2022
• But Migos made the style sound fresh, less performative and more glossy.
  — Jon Caramanica, New York Times, 1 Nov. 2022
• But the best part isn’t that Quinn is carrying around a performative-art piece Jezebel tells me is about $900.
  — Vulture Editors, Vulture, 30 Dec. 2021
• These notes are cozy and performative and a little dorky, the kind of thinky seduction that Ephron writes best.
  — Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 15 Aug. 2022
• But Hawkins said many of those vows to change proved to be more performative than productive.
  — USA TODAY, 14 Aug. 2023
• Helfrich is quick to warn that the debates can’t be performative.
  — Anna Oakes, Quartz, 6 June 2023
• There’s nothing about it that should feel performative in any way.
  — Los Angeles Times, 9 Aug. 2022
• And so the performative nature of the outing is reduced.
  — Washington Post, 9 Dec. 2020
• Any heroics from the US, at this point, will mostly be performative.
  — Nicolás Rivero, Quartz, 24 July 2021
• Lee countered that the protest by Democrats was more performative than sincere.
  — Bryan Schott, The Salt Lake Tribune, 22 Oct. 2020
• Each band was firmly in its creative and performative prime that night.
  — Rory Appleton, The Indianapolis Star, 11 May 2023
• Once detected, the performative aroma of this style is hard to shake.
  — Ron Charles, Washington Post, 7 Sep. 2023
• The first is quiet and personal; the second is loud and performative.
  — Steve Booren, The Denver Post, 21 July 2024
• There’s also this performative culture around mah-jongg; white women dress up in costumes to play the game in their homes, with their friends.
  — Time, 4 May 2021
• The in-person workouts don’t start until May 24, so the threats right now are mostly performative.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 17 Apr. 2021
• Others had less faith in the scores to begin with and found the exercise largely performative.
  — Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 4 May 2023
• Brands need to be performative to succeed in a social media world.
  — Adam Hanft, Fortune, 25 Jan. 2024
• The presentations got more performative as the day went on.
  — Phoebe Connelly, Washington Post, 29 Jan. 2024
• This is as much a physical attack as a performative one: Watch us, Hamas seems to be saying.
  — Juliette Kayyem, The Atlantic, 7 Oct. 2023
• The next five months will test how much of a desire there is by voters for Boebert’s brand of performative politics.
  — David Mark, Washington Examiner, 12 Jan. 2024
• So where does that leave those of us, like me, for whom mom friendships have felt forced, performative, fraught, and just like more emotional labor?
  — Hannah Seligson, ELLE, 27 Feb. 2023
• Why did one strike me, even then, as performative and fake, while the other became deeply meaningful?
  — Sanderskristin, Longreads, 21 Oct. 2020
• Since its app is all about the performative nature of modern existence, that should be easy.
  — Owen Thomas, SFChronicle.com, 16 Sep. 2020
• The first two, done in isolation, can be performative if not part of something like the third and fourth, which drive more significant change.
  — Glenn Nelson, Outside Online, 2 Mar. 2021
• So did the performative nature of the exercise, with the cameras watching.
  — Calvin Woodward, chicagotribune.com, 24 Mar. 2021
• In one Met Gala look, the singer managed to balance pageantry and activism without coming off as false or performative.
  — Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 14 Sep. 2021
• Some apologies are necessary, some are less so — merely performative or frivolous.
  — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 30 July 2024
• Lithuania’s restoration of independence in 1990 paved the way for new conceptual, performative, and feminist art movements.
  — The Editors Of Artnews, ARTnews.com, 3 Oct. 2024

Last Updated: 13 Nov 2024