How to Use sweep aside in a Sentence

sweep aside

phrasal verb
  • The tension remains, until the story needs it to be swept aside for a grander statement.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 6 Dec. 2023
  • The project needs to be ambitious enough to sweep aside in its entirely the exercise-in-obscuity that is Circular A-4.
    Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., Forbes, 3 May 2023
  • Revolution is typically portrayed as the final act that the struggle has been building toward, as the old ways are swept aside in favor of a new and presumably glorious future.
    Catherine Bray, Variety, 6 Sep. 2023
  • But the establishment of democracy was not about sweeping aside the corrupt institutional landscape that had been created by the dictatorship.
    Eduardo Mello, Foreign Affairs, 1 Oct. 2018
  • Congress will again need to fund the government in coming weeks risking a crisis as views are hardening, particularly among the right-flank lawmakers whose demands were ultimately swept aside this time in favor of a more bipartisan approach.
    Lisa Mascaro, Fortune, 1 Oct. 2023
  • What this interpretation leaves out, according to Perl-Rosenthal, is that all the transatlantic revolutions began to unfold at an accelerating pace as the initial revolutionary vanguard was swept aside.
    Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 25 Mar. 2024
  • President Biden began sweeping aside his predecessor’s restrictive immigration policies on his first day in office.
    Toluse Olorunnipa, Washington Post, 10 May 2023
  • Washington backed the uncompromising secular reformer Benito Juárez, who swept aside Maximilian’s forces and ordered the archduke’s execution by firing squad.
    Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs, 22 Feb. 2022

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