How to Use protean in a Sentence

protean

adjective
  • Here are just a few of the many ways your protean pork can be put to use for lunch or dinner to get you through the week.
    Shilpa Uskokovic, Bon Appétit, 8 Sep. 2021
  • To use the journalism word for it, the story is so protean.
    Isaac Chotiner, Slate Magazine, 2 Oct. 2017
  • But not even the protean De Niro can reverse the relentless march of time.
    Josh Rottenberg, Los Angeles Times, 2 Jan. 2020
  • Those who follow Mr. Vongerichten know the chef to be a protean shape-shifter.
    Pete Wells, New York Times, 3 July 2017
  • That protean nature is reflected in his teams and his record.
    Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 5 Sep. 2019
  • Theater, the most protean of art forms, and one of the oldest, has an especially complex genome.
    New York Times, 20 Mar. 2020
  • The Sun is dying and a bomb the size of Manhattan is all that can save it in this thrill ride from protean filmmaker Danny Boyle.
    Randall Colburn, EW.com, 16 May 2022
  • In the meantime, less protean Democrats are making the affirmative case.
    The Editors, National Review, 16 Apr. 2021
  • The show's politics were either protean or static in a changing world.
    Darren Franich, EW.com, 8 Sep. 2022
  • In this box, works by over 20 composers receive readings that attest to his protean talents.
    David Mermelstein, WSJ, 26 Apr. 2021
  • Lastly, and perhaps best of all, its protean appeal may be most appreciated in a Miesian, less-is-more, mode.
    Beth Segal, cleveland, 15 Jan. 2022
  • Still, Dudamel steps into a huge challenge for even a protean conductor.
    Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr. 2021
  • But English is such a beautiful, rich, protean language to render ugly and dumb.
    Nr Editors, National Review, 25 July 2019
  • In the years since, Assayas has become a critical and art-house favorite, as well as perhaps the most protean and cosmopolitan of working French filmmakers.
    Justin Chang, latimes.com, 17 May 2018
  • The twenty-four-year-old photographer’s ornate, protean wardrobe provides a kind of disguise.
    Eren Orbey, The New Yorker, 18 July 2019
  • Roth’s output was protean, too wide, too deep and too fervent to truly capture in an appraisal of this length, composed overnight after learning of his death late the previous evening.
    New York Times, 23 May 2018
  • From these disparate influences, Squid has built something protean and compelling.
    Sheldon Pearce, The New Yorker, 11 May 2021
  • Hawke’s protean energy was a kind of antidote to the anxiety of abandonment.
    John Lahr, The New Yorker, 14 Sep. 2020
  • On November 28, the protean American fashion designer Virgil Abloh died at the age of 41.
    Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, WSJ, 29 Nov. 2021
  • That Zhao ascended to the top post just years before the Tiananmen crackdowns epitomized the protean nature of Chinese elite politics.
    Chang Che, The New Republic, 27 Oct. 2022
  • English is a big, big language — a sprawling, protean language — adopting and assimilating words and phrases from all over the world.
    Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 21 Apr. 2022
  • No one has explored the protean nature of science more prominently than the Viennese scientist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn.
    Amitha Kalaichandran, Wired, 3 June 2021
  • This month, de Lucchi revisits the dining table and chair for Stellar Works, a furniture maker that shares his protean outlook.
    WSJ, 25 Apr. 2022
  • More than in other bands with a similar method, the drummer falls right into the flow: Far from serving as a steady shoreline against which those waves can crash, Podgurski can roll and fold along with them, protean and unsettled as ever.
    Jon Pareles, New York Times, 24 Apr. 2020
  • That’s a big risk considering how protean that technology still is.
    Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 13 May 2021
  • And this thoughtful and well-presented show — the Shed’s first attempt at a major retrospective of this kind — reveals a protean artist who is in many ways even more visionary than expected.
    Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2019
  • Cabin visitors fight protean spirits of the dead with a chainsaw, a shotgun and Egyptian incantations.
    Los Angeles Times, 4 Oct. 2019
  • Less than sixty days out from the election, Trump, unburdened by official campaign themes or facts, seems to be chasing a surprisingly large and protean coalition.
    Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker, 11 Sep. 2020
  • But the conditions, and the opportunities of streaming, are also ripe for a protean, fast-working filmmaker like Soderbergh.
    Jake Coyle, Star Tribune, 24 June 2021
  • All of Aviv’s subjects, herself included, live at the mercy of social and medical constructions, and yet strive to shape and reshape their irreducible, protean selves.
    Jordan Kisner, The Atlantic, 13 Sep. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'protean.' 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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