How to Use valence in a Sentence

valence

noun
Definition of valencenext
  • What does shift is the emotional valence of the scenes.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 16 Oct. 2021
  • The care movement brings more to the table than good poll numbers and the moral valence of children, though.
    — Elliot Haspel, The New Republic, 26 Aug. 2021
  • In On the Record’s later scenes, these comments take on a more rueful valence.
    — Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 1 June 2020
  • Thousands of Christians flocked to his events, where prayer and singing took on a new valence of defiance.
    — New York Times, 6 Apr. 2022
  • For most people, the term evokes a strong negative valence.
    — Robert H. Frank, New York Times, 27 Oct. 2017
  • For starters, don’t assign a moral valence to staying in the bathroom for too long, cautioned Eyal, the author and lecturer.
    — Mikhail Klimentov, Washington Post, 15 Nov. 2022
  • Out of all of that, somehow, comes the idea that trying not to get sick has some sort of suspicious political and moral valence.
    — Addison Del Mastro, The Week, 16 Feb. 2022
  • These results show the amygdala is central to determining the valence of tastes.
    — Simon Makin, Scientific American, 30 May 2018
  • The Javelin has taken on a symbolic valence in pro-Ukraine online chatter.
    — Washington Post, 10 Mar. 2022
  • But what's an extra 20 interviews if each one helps a pal make a buck, or tens of thousands of them, or helps to build a carpeted stairway to the next valence of fame?
    — Brennan Kilbane, Allure, 23 Feb. 2023
  • Twenty-seven percent of the words in that one sentence have a positive valence – even out of context.
    — Eli Amdur, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2024
  • Next came 12 seconds to imagine that happening, and then 14 seconds to rate vividness and valence.
    — Alison Escalante, Forbes, 25 May 2021
  • For his part, Butler noted that ardor itself has no moral valence.
    — Sam Adler-Bell, The New Republic, 3 Dec. 2021
  • But its fixation on illness and death also gives it a darker valence.
    — Julian Lucas, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2023
  • But among its valences is that we are granted permissions that adult women rarely receive.
    — Zan Romanoff, Bon Appetit, 30 Dec. 2017
  • Scraping the track data for each recording in Radiohead’s oeuvre gave Thompson a list of each song’s valence.
    — Joe Veix, Newsweek, 16 Mar. 2017
  • Still, our method reveals the ability for marketers and academics to go beyond star ratings and beyond the valence of language.
    — Derek Rucker, Forbes, 20 Apr. 2021
  • But their show will remind you that tenderness itself has a double valence: love, yes, but also pain.
    — Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 14 Apr. 2021
  • According to valence bond theory, what is the hybridization of the central atom of methane?
    — Brian Whitehead, Orange County Register, 14 Feb. 2017
  • But the baseball crowd’s spontaneous chants have a different valence.
    — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 28 Oct. 2019
  • But the deeper implication of that analysis is that a rhetorical shift won't be sufficient to change the valence of the issue.
    — Noah Millman, The Week, 25 June 2021
  • Scenes that are topical one season can take on unexpected valences the next.
    — Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 11 Jan. 2024
  • Religious outreach has a much different valence for a person who is not free to make his or her own decisions.
    — Emma Green, The Atlantic, 12 Aug. 2017
  • The violence of January 6th has become a touchstone for Biden, too, but with a different valence.
    — Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2024
  • That kind of tedium and self-abasement, not to mention aches and intimacy with grime, have emotional valence to me.
    — Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 20 Oct. 2020
  • The prize bestowed in his name, this year awarded to Margaret Atwood, is for free speech, a concept whose political valence has shifted since his death.
    — Christian Lorentzen, Harper’s Magazine , 20 July 2022
  • Our understanding of how the brain assigns valence still has important gaps.
    — Yasemin Saplakoglu, Quanta Magazine, 7 Sep. 2022
  • But the case titles themselves underscore the partisan valence of this dispute.
    — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 3 Mar. 2021
  • This time around, there was a different divide — both in terms of the people involved, as Bannon and McMaster are both gone, and the valence of the options under discussion.
    — Zack Beauchamp, Vox, 17 Apr. 2018
  • The researchers do note that their technique will only track broad changes in emotional valence over time, ignoring shifts that occur on the level of the sentence or paragraph.
    — Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 6 July 2016

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