Noun a barrage of racist invective hurled curses and invective at the driver who heedlessly cut them off in traffic Adjective an overbearing, bullying boss who is fond of sending invective e-mails to long-suffering assistants

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun

All this invective aimed at the military was confirmed by the Associated Press. Brandon Friedman, Star Tribune, "How many insults will service members and military veterans take from Trump?," 8 Sep. 2020

Others face streams of invective in their inboxes and on their Twitter feeds. Ed Yong, The Atlantic, "The Pandemic Experts Are Not Okay," 7 July 2020

Few predicted back then the flood of invective and misinformation that now sloshes around online. The Economist, "The moderator’s dilemma Donald Trump has reignited a debate about regulating speech online," 4 June 2020

Bitter partisan invective certainly exists, though it has been stripped of any real outrage and given a slick screwball sheen. cleveland, "Jon Stewart’s off-key political comedy, starring Steve Carell, is far from ‘Irresistible’," 25 June 2020

The propaganda campaign that preceded the demolition of the liaison office was spearheaded by Kim Yo Jong, the dictator’s younger sister, who also issued the fiercest invective against the South. The Economist, "Out with a bang North Korea blows up detente with the South," 17 June 2020

Piso père might be Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, Julius Caesar’s father-in-law and the target of one of Cicero’s nastier invectives. Gregory Hays, The New York Review of Books, "Horace’s How-To," 27 May 2020

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian and the WHO’s first African leader, projected humility and minimized his personal role while decrying invective and even racist slurs against him amid the organizaiton’s response. Jamey Keaten, BostonGlobe.com, "UN health agency on defensive after Trump slams it on virus," 8 Apr. 2020

Recent Examples on the Web: Adjective

On social media, anger and invective start flowing. Darryn King, Wired, "The Last of Us Part II and Its Crisis-Strewn Path to Release," 10 June 2020

When the quit this year, , a tsunami of invective washed over social media, calling him a communist, a traitor, a crook. Washington Post, "An investigation into fake news targets Brazil’s Bolsonaros, and critics fear a constitutional crisis," 3 June 2020

Please come to the plate with facts and reason, not invective. Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, "Doc's Morning Line: Sports is a breather and a vacation. We need a vacation right now.," 3 June 2020

This is not a time for cynicism or invective or second-guessing. Andrew Taylor, Fortune, "Trump signs $2.2 trillion stimulus after swift congressional votes," 27 Mar. 2020

Hytner tends to stay away from the self-revealing (except for his run-in with Harold Pinter, which is so invective-strewn it can’t be reproduced here without making the paragraph look like a night sky of asterisks). Peter Lewis, The Christian Science Monitor, "'Balancing Acts' author Nicholas Hytner looks back at a successful career at London’s National Theatre," 8 Dec. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'invective.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.