How to Use reductive in a Sentence

reductive

adjective
Definition of reductivenext
  • This is a truly crabbed and reductive view of the man and his work.
    — Los Angeles Times, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Slightly reductive on the nose with a touch of smoke and some over ripe green fruits.
    — Joseph V Micallef, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2021
  • But there is something about the culture that is, at the very least, reductive.
    — WIRED, 29 Oct. 2022
  • But that’s too reductive for what Lin has done here, which is to write a crime novel as a slice of life.
    — David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, 28 July 2022
  • Black life, that is realized here in the most reductive of forms.
    — Sarah-Tai Black, Los Angeles Times, 22 Sep. 2022
  • The reductive portrait of class warfare would’ve felt cheap in a Hunger Games rip-off 10 years ago.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 9 July 2020
  • Or that’s the simple, arguably reductive way to think about it.
    — Ashley Fetters Maloy, Washington Post, 22 Jan. 2024
  • But at the same time, that art is exhausting and reductive.
    — Zito Madu, GQ, 24 Apr. 2018
  • The actors and the series as a whole are careful not to paint Mira or Jonathan with reductive strokes.
    — Jen Chaney, Vulture, 10 Sep. 2021
  • Puryear’s best work is reductive, striving to reach an essence.
    — Brian T. Allen, National Review, 10 Aug. 2019
  • The problem for teams that are greater than the sum of their parts—like Indiana—is that the playoffs have a way of being reductive.
    — Rob Mahoney, SI.com, 27 Mar. 2018
  • Keep in mind that this is a fairly reductive way to view overall health and wellness.
    — Mark Travers, Forbes, 31 July 2022
  • Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a feminist hero, and that’s the most reductive way to put it.
    — Washington Post, 19 Sep. 2020
  • These are fables, which means on some level these 30-minute stories have to be reductive in some way.
    — Sonaiya Kelleystaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 19 Apr. 2022
  • There’s also a danger for AI in hiring to be too reductive.
    — Chika Dunga, Quartz at Work, 13 Nov. 2020
  • The products read like Product, with a design so reductive there could be anything in there.
    — New York Times, 24 Mar. 2021
  • Yet, with Learn My Lesson, Robert throws that reductive nonsense out the window.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 3 Nov. 2019
  • So now that that old definition of greatness has proven reductive, what does the term mean?
    — New York Times, 19 Oct. 2020
  • There is something reductive about this kind of writing, right?
    — Ava Kofman, ProPublica, 18 July 2022
  • The play draws direct, and at times reductive, parallels between the past and recent present.
    — Naveen Kumar, New York Times, 6 Dec. 2023
  • This is incredibly reductive, but think of it as a glossier cross between Twitch and Zoom.
    — Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 4 May 2021
  • This is a choice forced by health-care economics and reductive ideas about the line between living and dying.
    — Rachael Bedard, The New Yorker, 6 Mar. 2022
  • Yes, the lead was stupidly reductive, but nothing a little self-soothing at the minibar couldn’t fix.
    — Karen Karbo, National Geographic, 25 Mar. 2019
  • The plan was to create a car that impressed by a reductive design, drawing attention to what isn’t there as much as what is.
    — Alistair Charlton, Forbes, 29 Feb. 2024
  • But there is much, much more to the decision on Bitadze’s option than that — and calling him a depth piece may be too reductive in the not-so-distant future.
    — Tony East, Forbes, 26 Oct. 2021
  • The truths this writer arrives at, both in the poem and in the life, are not neat, reductive, or easy — but the book is reassuring nonetheless.
    — Maggie Smith, Washington Post, 30 Mar. 2023
  • These three reductive archetypes of Black women have been reinforcing stereotypes in the US for many, many years.
    — Jasmine Browley, Essence, 17 Mar. 2022
  • There’s something kind of wonderfully humane about that, and reductive in the best sense.
    — Chris Willman, Variety, 5 Apr. 2023
  • The discourse around such cuts as D.C. offers the billionaire owner of the Caps and Wizards a $515 million deal to stay downtown is reductive; the money comes from a different pot.
    — Petula Dvorak, Washington Post, 4 Apr. 2024
  • The film also shares a sledgehammer’s reductive nature.
    — Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 29 Mar. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'reductive.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: